[Boyce]

You had a great two days fishing. And you saw a tripletail! That’s awesome! First TT report this year if I’m not mistaken.

[Boyce]

Yes indeed! Great trip!

[Boyce]

Great trip!

[Boyce]

Tough day— I know them all too well. A guide I know in that area only caught redfish and black drum today, so maybe it was just tough on everyone. I know the Barataria Basin won’t be acting funny for long, I’m sure it’s about to be hammer time. Great report!

[Boyce]

Another cool thing about the cranking battery: it has a power reserve mode. Meaning it will not allow itself to get below a certain percentage to make sure it has enough juice to start the motor. Though I doubt I would ever run it down that low.

[Boyce]

There is definitely merit to what @Jonathan is saying.

My main hold up on getting the cranking battery was the charging issue. I was concerned it would fry my alternator because I had read about that and saw a YouTube video of some guy that reviews batteries talking about that. This has been on my mind for 2 years.

I watch a lot of Bass fishing stuff on YouTube and I started noticing that a lot of guys in the Elite Series were starting to run LiFePO4’s as their cranking battery, and would run all their electronics off it as well. Well, they do this for a living and depend on those motors, so if they’re doing it then I need to look into again.

I found this guy on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@goodmanfishing?si=gq_ztstEXcC5JkdW

I stumbled across a video of him testing marine batteries that he was going to use on his boat. After looking through his channel, come to find out he’s an engineer. Engineers are typically some of the smartest and most analytical people out there, so the more and more I watched his stuff, I knew he was legit and knows his sh*t. He actually runs my same battery set up on his 2019 Tracker with a 115 Mercury. I run a 2022 Ranger with a 75 Mercury. So I emailed him asking him about the charging issue I had read about. He basically said he has had no issues and that the BMS’s on the old lithium batteries with different chemistries apparently, aren’t as robust as these new batteries and their BMS’s. (He gave a much cooler, engineer type answer than that).

I’m not an engineer, but I’m a pretty analytical guy myself. So of course I did some research on what he said, and it all came back legit.

I have Mercury Vessel View, so I can monitor my engine’s performance in real time, and I have the app to monitor the batteries. So this past Saturday, I pulled up both apps on my phone while I was running on plane so I could see what they were saying the battery was charging at. It’s rated to be charged by up a 60? Amp Alternator I want to say, I’ll have to check. I just wanted to compare what each app was telling me to see if anything looked off.

The Mercury Vessel View app was showing me that on plane, it was charging the battery around 14 volts. The LiTime app said the same thing. That made me happy.

I’m still unsure of how it’s going to turn out. But after all that research, I was willing to take a chance. It may fry my alternator, who knows. Hopefully not lol.

It’s something I’ll monitor going forward and will of course report back. But so far so good!

I also think the age of an outboard and type of charging system have a lot to do with it. I think Stator type charging systems may have some issues even with the new batteries, but I’m not 100% certain on that.

[Boyce]

From my research, that issue was prevalent with the old Lithium Batteries. Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) apparently has a different chemistry and the BMS’s are more advanced now, so apparently that issue doesn’t really exist now.

I was on the fence about getting them for a while for that exact reason.

I want to say 2 stroke outboards may still have some issue though.

Venice will be the true test for my trolling motor battery. I can’t wait to see how it does there.

[Boyce]

I got one made by the same company who makes the batteries. https://www.litime.com/

[Boyce]

Yeah me too, and I will continue to do so. I need backup plans to my backup plan.

[Boyce]

[Boyce]

With his FFS, he could see all of this by just turning the TM head. For someone without it like all of us, we would have to troll around and look at downscan to find them again, which increases the chances of spooking them.

[Boyce]

They weren’t circling it while I was watching him. They were set up on a corner of the rig and would move to the opposite corner, then they would move off the rig about 100 yards. Basically he was set up at a 45 degree angle on the corner of a rig and they would move from his left, to his center, to his right.

[Boyce]

WBJ is good for a limit every trip. If there was a betting line in Vegas on WBJ getting a limit, I’m sending the house.

[Boyce]

Ahhhh that makes sense

[Boyce]

I agree with that, it would be awesome to just use it to watch how the fish behave and move underwater.

He absolutely was on them and I wasn’t. I didn’t want to get up on his bite, so I just fished around him. But with the FFS, he was able to stay on them much more easily. Every time they moved, he moved with them.