I have 1996 Mercury 200 efi and 2 lowrance fish finders. Was thinking about replacing cranking battery but wanted to see what everyone had first.

I had a 95 mariner 150 on my old champion and I went with the biggest battery I could find. At that time I was using a stowaway 31 series deep cycle. And had it for well over 5 years and it was still going strong when I sold the boat. I fished just about every other weekend too.

I had a 27 series running 2 graphs and an aerator and by the end of the day it had to be jumped off. 2 weeks ago I changed to a 29 series and it's made all the difference in the world. You definitely want a deep cycle/marine/rv type battery. Bigger is better.

Sears PM1 AGM 31, 1150 CCA, 205 reserve, simply the best battery if you do not mind the weight, 75lbs. Wait till they go on sale!

So y'all use deep cycle batteries over starting batteries?

three deep cycles for running all the stuff and a dedicated 1000 cca cranker for nothing but turning over the engine. evinrude 200 xp.

30 series agm cabelas

There are upper end batteries that offer the cranking amps and reserve capacity. Sears PM1 is one of the highest. I am a fan of Trojan due to price but will lean toward a PM1 next time.

This is what I have also.

I just put 4 31 series AGM's in my boat. Sears is a good battery, but I looked at all the options and the best deal I found was a NAPA labeled battery by East Penn manufacturing. East Penn makes the Deka Intimidator. They also sell to O'Reilly (SuperStart), NAPA and probably others too that are the same batteries with different labels. NAPA has a great lineup of battery options, but they may not be labeled "marine." Same batteries though.

I have a 175 Yamaha and run 4 fish finders on a 27. No issues for the last 18 months. I make sure I keep the battery charged at all times.

My ex partner, rest his soul, was told by a boat macahnic in Del Rio that running a deep cycle as a cranking battery was hard on the power head, that's after his went out! Not mentioning names but he's suppose to be one of the best... Just what I was told.

I just bought 3 batteries at oreilly auto. Exact same batteries bass pro sells with a different label, group 31

Oreilly-$94.95
Bass pro-$189

This is what I run

How big is your cranking battery?? Thats kind of personal. :-)