What is the best boat battery for starting and electronics?

Here’s my story last year I found my self in the middle of Rainy lake a Mile from camp with a dead battery and no other boats around. Fortunately my trolling motor had enough juice to get us back.

The situation that led to the batteries being dead came about because we were on the fish. For 4-6 hours all we did was use the trolling motor and go around islands and along shorelines without ever having to fire up the outboard.

I had my 8 inch Onix running along with the live well aeration going. That is all it took to drain my starter battery down.

So what do you recommend?

I have a 36 volt Trolling motor So I am running 3 batteries there and my starting battery.

Is there a really good battery that can handle a day of electronics and still have enough power to turn over the motor?

Should I separate out all of my electronics from by starting battery?

I have 50 Grand into my boat already whats another 1000 to make sure every works the way it should.

I also have a 4 Bank on board charger as well as a note if you have suggestions.

Thanks for your help and advise.

Odyssey batteries!

What battery were you using and what motor does it need to start?

First thoughts I have is to use a dual purpose not a cranking battery. Second, biggest you can fit in there using your preferred brand.

One question I have, can you disconnect one of the TM batteries(to reduce to 12v) and then use jumper cables to give you a boost? might be cheap insurance.

patk wrote:

What battery were you using and what motor does it need to start?

First thoughts I have is to use a dual purpose not a cranking battery. Second, biggest you can fit in there using your preferred brand.

One question I have, can you disconnect one of the TM batteries(to reduce to 12v) and then use jumper cables to give you a boost? might be cheap insurance.

Had the same thing happen to me on Pool 4 last year. Didn’t move for 6 hours other than drift around with the trolling motor. I did a quick change over with one of the trolling motor batteries to get started up. I now carry a cheap set of jumper cables that reach from the front bank to the starting motor. But now that it’s happened once to me, I often find myself starting the big motor to idle a while if I’m not moving around much.

I had to disconnect a trolling motor battery once and use it to get home. That’s always a backup plan if you need to. I also try to set a mental clock to run the motor at idle for a few minutes every couple of hours.

I have an Odyssey and it’s great but after 8-10 hours of running everything on it it will be close to losing all it’s juice.

I like the jumper idea….easy to throw a set of cables in the boat if you had to.

if you have the room for another battery you could dedicate one to electronics and one for starting only. that is what I did and I’ve let my electronic run all day and had plenty of juice left at end of day. I have a 29 size deep cycle for the electronics, biggest that would fit, then just a 24 size starting battery for the OB.

Something to watch, I have noticed the biggest power draw on my birds is the backlight, first thing I do everytime is turn it down as low as I can and still see the screen ok.

All good advice.

It’s pretty easy in my boat to pull a trolling motor battery and switch out the main motor battery. I had some jumper cables in my boat but they started to rust and corrode after a couple years.

Now I keep a jumper pack. I’ve used it for others more then myself but it’s there for either reason.

6 hour run time is horrible.

Battery shot?

My first thought is to kill the livewell… Put fish in a cooler with ice.

I run 10&12″ screens and don’t worry about juice ever. Two group 29 interstate deep cycles.

If you have the room, dump two new batteries in there and you should be good to go. Always go overkill with batteries IMO.

Jumper cables or jump pack, replace your battery with the biggest, highest quality that will fit.

Add the voltage reading as an overlay on your depth finder. I start the main motor when the voltage first dips below 12v and let it recharge for 15 minutes or more.

Then again, I’m usually fishing Mille Lacs so there is no reason for my live well to run.

I picked up a charger pack last year and it is some really cheap insurance if you need to jump start something (takes up no space in a storage compartment).

This is the one I bought off of Camofire (and used it yesterday morning on my boat) LIGHTNING PAK ULTRA SLIM BATTERY CHARGER PACK.

Buy the largest deep cycle agm that’ll fit and has enough cca to start your motor. Most deep cycle batteries have enough cca to start your motor.

The guy at the interstate battery store talked me out of a dual purpose battery and said you’re far better off with a deep cycle.

A couple years later now and I finally took that advise. I haven’t drained my battery past 11.9v yet and I do a lot of trolling with my kicker and spot lock with the trolling motor.

Deep cycle. Don’t think twice.

biggill wrote:

Buy the largest deep cycle agm that’ll fit and has enough cca to start your motor. Most deep cycle batteries have enough cca to start your motor.

The guy at the interstate battery store talked me out of a dual purpose battery and said you’re far better off with a deep cycle.

A couple years later now and I finally took that advise. I haven’t drained my battery past 11.9v yet and I do a lot of trolling with my kicker and spot lock with the trolling motor.

Deep cycle. Don’t think twice.

2x What biggill said. No starting batteries. No dual purpose batteries. Biggest scam out there. Get the biggest deepcycle AGM you can fit. It will have more than enough CCA to start the big motor. It can handle low loads for hours and still start the big motor. I have a single group 31 AGM running HB 2- helix 12’s and a 10. Livewell pumps and stereo with an amp and a powered sub. Never had an issue starting the 250 4 stroke. Never had my locators cut out when starting the big motor. Go big and you will go home.

I put in a perko battery switch in this boat.
Granted I never had an issue with the Odyssey batteries, but this is cheap insurance. If the main won’t fire, switch over to 2, fire it up and run.

Gotta give credit and thank Tony from SBC for this one, as I didn’t think of it nor install it by myself.

https://www.westmarine.com/buy/perko–compact-medium-duty-off-1-all-2-battery-switch–14996441?recordNum=7

You might check if your motor specs indicate what CCA or MCA is required. My Optimax specs say minimum 800 CCA or 1000 MCA. So an Optima 27M or 31M Bluetop fits the bill. I chose the 27M because the 31M was a bit too tight. I sometimes fish 12 hours with 3 sonars, Structurescan, NMEA2000, livewell all pulling power and have no issues.

John S.

Quote: I have $50K into my boat. Why would you want to skimp on the batteries. Don’t put the cheap ones in and expect all will be good for years to come out on the water.
I’ve been running Odyssey Extreme series batteries for more than 6 yrs now. I DO NOT have battery issues since switching to Odyssey.
Skeeter Boat Center in Chippewa Falls right up the road from you carries them. Eric in the parts dept will get you what you need for your rig.

Group 31 AGM deep cycle, as far as brand, that choice is yours. The “starting battery” is actually used more for running everything else than starting so have a battery that will handle that. As mentioned above, make sure it has enough MCA if your motor has a minimum requirement.