Minnkota Vantage trolling motors 12/24/36 volt

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone out there has any experiences using one of those transom mounted Minnkota Vantage electric motors. I’m curious as to what experiences you have encountered, battery consumption/recharging and general impressions etc. Is it worth the price?

At times, I have trouble getting my Merc 60 to troll/backtroll down to the speed I would like and I hate to waste precious fishing time rigging a drift sock to achieve the speed I would like. I’m wondering out loud if this would help me out or if someone has other ideas. Thoughts?

Thanks in Advance

I was wondering the same thing. I have a front mount that I use for vertical jigging but would like to do some trolling pulling some cranks and three ways. I have a 17 foot boat with a 115 on the back. Was wondering how a Maxium 24 volt with 65 lbs. of thrust would work. They are cheaper.

I wonder if a 4-stroke kicker (maybe 8 or 9 hp) would slow me down, concerned about the noise though and think the kicker would be more weight than the electric. I wonder if the 24/36 volt transom electrics have the stamina for a days worth of trolling (or at least 4-6 hours). I have a 50 Power Drive up front (12 volt) and by the end of the day the battery’s pretty wasted. I guess it depends too on the current and the wind blowing.

There was a post a while back on different ways to slow your boat down. A search for “trolling speed” in ‘all posts’ found it. The title was “trolling plates” although plates weren’t all that was dicussed. PM me if you can’t find it and I can bump it back to the top.

my brother has one on his boat and loves it.like the fact that he doesent have to lean over to steer and pull up the motor. about half the people that have them have problems though including my brother. min kota has been good taking care of it though. he still would never go back to a standerd motor

Thanks

I’m going to Cabelas to check one out on Saturday, Lord willing and the water don’t rise. I want to get a fly tying kit so I can ties some those hair jigs. If I’m lucky this weekend I may even have some white rat hair to use. My daughters friend brought a rat over to the house to show it off and well …. it’s still in the house, somewhere. Anyone in the market for a nice long pink tail for their jig? Why me Lord?

The Vantage 74 weighs about 60 pounds, I think, and a Yamaha t-8 (a great kicker!) is about 100#. We were thinking of the t-8, but at $2200 is more than the Vantage 74 at about $900 by twice. So we are going to try the Vantage. Have talked to people who love it. It also has a “flip the head” feature that turns it into a backtrolling unit in mere seconds.

At 24 volts and using slower speeds, it should hold up for a good 6-8-12 hours no problem, if our other 24 volt bow unit (lesser thrust, so higher speed needed) is any indicator. At faster speeds (like 2 mph) I bet it would only get about 4-6 hours tops, if even. But then we can use our outboards.

And your thought about the outboards making noise is correct. A couple years ago we found eyes pretty shallow, and were catching lots. Then our electric died (last day of the trip) and we had to use an 7.4 hp kicker… no more fish after that. We spooked them out of the area. The electric was the ticket.

I’m in White Bear, so still aways before I get the boat out.

-Box