How Long Should Trolling Batteries Last?

24 Volt MotorGuide, 75lb thrust, and I use it two to three times a week on average and plug it into the charger after every trip. Charger is a NOCO Genius.

Today I was fishing a tournament and it got really weak and almost died after about 5 1/2 hours...I had to quit fishing the tourney. It has 5 settings and on average I was only running it on 2 and sometimes 3. But, it was a cypress tree lake so I had my foot on the pedal more than normal pitching tree-to-tree.

Batteries are almost 2 years old. Should they be bad already?

Possible I'm running a 80lb and can run trolling motor 8-10hours and still have juice left

24 volt set up or 36?

How long has it been since you checked the water? If they are full,then charge them up and take them and get them load tested. That will tell you if you need batteries. I have a 109 MG 36v and I can fish on it 12 hours and still have plenty juice.

Mines 24 think jimmyp is dead on

I checked the water this afternoon and it was fine. Where can I get them load tested...AutoZone?

Thanks.

Autozone can. Just make sure they use the big tester on them. The little one wont put enough load on a deep cycle to tell.

if you got 2 yrs out of them you did good most marine batteries have a 1 yr warranty for a reason.

I've got the walmart batteries. Pulled one out the other day. Sticker had 2/08 , I bought them in april 08. Never had em let me down, tournament or otherwise..

I just went to Fork yesterday and ran my trolling motor (109 Motorguide) from 7am to 7:30pm and got up this morning and hooked up my CSI charger to them. It took 3.5 hours to go back to all green on the charger. When we put the boat on the trailer we still had plenty juice left. So I would say you probably need to look at replacing the batteries. I have 4 Interstates in mine right now but have had 2 go bad on me in the year I have had them. I am going to look at different brands when I replace them. Hope this helps a little.

I have a 70lb 24 volt thrust motorguide running with 2 Optima blue tops and one time I had some motor problems on Lewisville over by the Colony cut down by the Dam and I trolled all the way back to Arrowhead on high for 4 hours non stop and still had plenty of juice when I got there. I charge them with a little cheap promariner charger too 5 amps per bank.

If they need water like JimmyP said use distilled water. And a 36 volt setup is not a good comparison to a 24 volt either.

I would say on 2 or 3 you should get more than 5-1/2 hours out of them. I just replaced a trolling battery that was only 14 months old, so after two years it is possible you may have one or both going bad.

Change mine every two years ,when I buy a new boat sticker.I don't like suprises

It sounds to me like you need new batteries. Unfortunately, any lead acid (deep cycle or not) is going to lead a pretty rough and short life in a trolling application.

Keeping them on a battery tender/charger at all times that you're not on the water will be the single best thing you can do for them...and it still probably won't help that much.

then I must really be screwing up bad to get 4-5 yrs out of wally world batteries.

http://www.batteryweb.com/faqbw.cfm#q2

Replaced one of ours at the beginning of this season, the sticker said the battery was from '07, so that's 6 years on a trolling battery.

I love wal mart batteries.

Cass, One thing that has not been mentioned is the charger. Just because the charger shows green does not the batteries are fully charged. Get a hydrometer and test water in battery when charger shows all green or take to any auto parts house and let them check. Bad/dirty connections can & will affect chargers on/off condition. IMO the batteries should not be bad in 2 years if they have been kept in a fully charged condition.

I have been getting right at 4 years on average on my wally world batteries. I just charge them up when i get back from the lake and plug it in for a few hours once a week to top off. I will also top them off the night before i know i am going out. But always try to keep them fully charged no matter what. So far wally world batteries have been good to me.

Some of above responses are from boaters with 'digital' trolling motors and their battery time experiences are mostly unrelated.

5.5 + hours day is likely a normal full (50% SOC )discharge on your batteries running a older technology type of trolling motor.
ew
2.5 per week X 2 years = ~250 full charge/discharge cycles with some likely occasional over discharges.

Sounds like typical near end of battery life especially for use on a non-digital 5 speed motor needing higher voltages to run at speed.

Running lower speeds such as speed 2 or 3 is not necessarily good use of a battery for that trolling motor. That Unused power below speed 5 is still drawn and dissipated as wasted heat in trolling motor lower coils . Tends to cause you to stay longer and more often on trolling motor and thus more quickly over- deplete available batteries.

Possible solutions:

Replace with 'digital' TM
Replace with 36V TM
Larger (RC minutes) new batteries
Troll fewer hours in a smaller boat

Thanks for all of the info fellas. Much appreciated!