Pontoon Trolling ?

[Tight Line Fever]

Dose anyone troll with there pontoon. took the trolling motor off of my cc put on the pontoon the other week for the wife an kids. Went to the lake trolling the two battery did not last long. I know the motor is on the small side minn kota pd 55 an the wind was bad. But if anyone is trolling in a pontoon 20ft. what works Thanks for the info.

[skiptomylu]

NO and that is why I no longer have a pontoon!

[BamaBrian]

I have a 20' foot Fisher toon, it came with a 12V 68lb thrust TM. I have not had any problems pulling 4-6 adults for up to 6 hours, the WIND is a different story! Alot of surface for the wind to catch! end up fighting a losing battle.

[Mopar Matt]

It would require a powerful motor and a large energy supply and NO wind. Usually when we take the toon out, we just find a spot and anchor down. If there is a good stump field to drift over, we will pull into the wind and let it push us over the field. I wouldn't give up my pontoon for taking the kids and several guests out, but I still always use my bass boat for most of the "real" fishing.

[Allen42]

I have saw a Guy on Lake Murray that was Trolling from a Toon, IF I am not mistaken, he was a Guide !, he even had rods going Stright back underneath the boat !! This was 8-9 years ago when we used to troll over the grass beds & he was in a cove & was doing quite well !!

[Bingo]

Here lately trolling is all i have been doing all day long out of my pontoon. I troll 6 to 7 bandits out the back. I have two Tite-Lok 5760L(Ideal for planer board fishing. Mounts up to five rod holders. Easily removed for storage. Allows 360 degree rotation of each individual rod holder. (24" Top Plate).

Here is a link to look at them.

http://www.captgarys.com/catalog/pro...roducts_id/982

I use the 5610 tite-lok rod holders and also the tite-lok 5610left and 5610right holders. Over the motor i have more of the rod holders mounted on the new 1" tite-lok mounting plates. The 5602-1 pontoon plate mounts. I have 15 of these all over the boat. Here is a link.

http://www.captgarys.com/catalog/index.php/cPath/6_28

On my pontoon i have a Minn Kota Powerdrive 80Lb thrust. This has the auto-pilot and i got the long 60" shaft. My pontoon has three logs and oversized, where i could put a big motor on the pontoon. I have the sonar and fish finder up front and one at the console also and soon i am going to have the color finder at the console mounted at the back of the toon also. My pontoon is 24' long and has a Honda 225 motor on it. You can troll from a toon but get a big powerful trolling motor. I have a charger on board for when i come in. I normally can run all day long before mine starts to lose power. This is trolling at 1.1 to 1.7mph.

I will take some better pictures in the back soon showing the trolling and rod holder soon. I'll post a picture now of before i got all the trolling stuff put on. I love this way of fishing and it has sort of spoiled me as it is relaxing. Trolling with the bigger crankbaits seem to produce good size fish for me also. I trolled Saturday in white caps. From early in the morning untill 5 pm or so. For a couple hours we did stop and bream fish. I was in a shallow bay, so i sped the trolling motor full speed ahead why we relaxed, had lunch and went along ways on the trolling motor, just where i could get out of the shallows before we cranked the big motor. Trolling comming home at 5:30pm, the trolling motor got weak(1mph) and i was surprised catching crappie that slow, but it did. The key is getting a big trolling motor and a good battery system for your pontoon.

http://webpages.charter.net/rscarbro/br21.jpg

http://webpages.charter.net/rscarbro/kimran2006g.jpg

[Bingo]

Here are more pics of the pontoon. I haven't taken any pics of the back lately since it is rigged for trolling but i will soon and post the pics.

The front
http://webpages.charter.net/rscarbro/240fdt5.jpg

Where i plug power in, to charge my trolling motor batteries
http://webpages.charter.net/rscarbro/240fdt7.jpg

The console
http://webpages.charter.net/rscarbro/240fdt8.jpg

[Fltcrew21]

I have a 25' Pontoon Boat and troll all day 10+ hours with it. I have a 24 volt Motor Guide 75lb Wireless TM.

Don't get anything less than 65lbs or 12 volts and make sure your batteries are not junk and you will have a very comforable ride!

[johnnybub]

I have a 24ft tripple toon,, set up with a 54lb motor guide toon motor,, I do not troll all day, but use it to set up over beds,, works great,, wind is a problem but I usually anchor after I locate the beds,,

[Cooler O' Slabs]

I have done a little research on this topic, alot of people recommend instead of a trolling motor, a small outboard motor 2-7.5 horse and trolling with that. Sounds like some pretty good responses already posted, but just figured I would put that in there. The nice thing about having that little motor, is (god-forbid) your motor ever incurs problems at the lake, well you always have a backup! Same can be said for a trolling motor too of course