i have a 20ft closed bow boat and would like to know if i can mount a trolling moter on the front? if so is it worth the hastle or money to get it done or should i just sell it and get an open bow?
I have been wondering about that myself, I have a trolling motor but not sure what to do with it now.
If the bow will not support your weight to fish on it, get an open bow.[;)]
You can mount an electric on the closed bow. If you get a digital controlled motor like the Power Drive V2, you can get one with an 18’ wire to the foot control or go wireless with a foot pedal or fob and run it anywhere in the boat. Don’t mount a cable drive motor or you will be sitting on top of a closed bow looking like a goober.
The problem with a the whole set up is you have to climb up on the closed bow to put the motor up and down. Not too fun in crappy conditions.
Not worth it. You will fall in. Numerous times. Cut the bow open so you can climb under the windshield or get an open bow boat.
If your using it as a motor to position your boat for Bass fishing or vertical jigging it doesn’t really matter where the motor is on the boat. Try to keep the battery as close to the motor as you can. I saw a friends boat with an enclosed bow and the motor on the front that he had beefed up and had a nice sheet of diamond plate aluminum to walk up there on and fish. It had a flush mount seat socket and all. Most likely you would have better luck with putting it on the stern. The electric motor is really handy for jigging Macks and pitching for bass and i can hardly do with out one.
Walleyebob speaks as a man of experience! LOL! I wouldn’t like climbing up there every time the motor needed to be put up or down either. You could install a hatch for accessing the the bow if you wanted to keep it closed.
For the type of fishing you’re going to do, don’t go with the transom mount. The bow mount is really the best solution.
As has been said. The problem is not mounting the motor there, It’s getting to it, to raise and lower the motor. I don’t know of any remote raising and lowering motors on the market. There are some models that have springs to assits the lowering and raising, but I don’t have one like that so I don’t know how well they work or if they would help for a closed bow.
A picture always helps to give advice on things like this.
I have a closed bow with a trolling motor mounted on it. I got a Minn Kota with both auto-pilot (keeps the motor going in the direction that it is pointed) and co-pilot (no wires – one just pushes buttons on the controls strapped to one’s wrist). It works well, but I would agree with the others that it is a pain to have to climb onto the bow each time to raise or lower it. It was the reason I went swimming (unplanned) in Strawberry this year. Having a motor on the bow gives one far greater boat control (one is pulling the boat) rather than mounting one on the transom (one is pushing the boat).
thanks for all the great input guys. it sounds like i need to cut the bow open so i’m not falling into the lake lol. the gas tank sits in the middle of the bow so i guess i need to cut a slit on the side of it to give me just enough room to get to the motor to lift it up. the only problem is i don’t know if the water will be able to get out of the bow if it rains or big waves come over the bow? hmmm maybe ill put a pump up their with a hose that i can just hang over the side. or some sort of a button down cover that hopefully doesn’t blow off.