I not new to boating, but I am uneducated on this subject. My question is: Would a red-top starting battery be good for a trolling motor? I am able to get one for free and am wondering how long its life would be. My last battery was a cheapo from Walley world that I sold with my last boat. It was a deep cycle, and on this red top it just says start up. Any info is appreciated, thanks alot.

It'll work for a while, but it'll wear out much, much sooner. If it's free, use it till it's shot if you want, but you'll have to buy a deep cycle eventually if you want something that will perform well and last more than a year at most.

Okay thank you. Could I use it to power lights? (The red/green in front and white one in back?)

Yeah I've done that with them. I assume you don't have electric start and don't need a cranking battery? most small depth finders don't draw much, and lights etc usually don't draw much either. I used a cheapo cranking battery to run my graph, gps, pumps lights etc for a couple years before it went bad, and that's only because I forgot to unhook it before I put the boat away for the winter. Should work well for that kind of stuff for you.

Alright awesome. Now for one more quick question, whats the best battery to get for a trolling motor? I only bowfish and rely on the trolling for 95% of it. Usually 4-6 hours of run time

Interstate is my choice and I have two of the smallest I can find, not one large one, so that I can easily carry them......jk

I use interstate, but there are lots of really high end high cost deep cycles out there. I've got one group 29 interstate on my 65 pound transom mount and that usually lasts me all day. But I use my big motor for a lot of stuff, as my boat is a tiller.

optima blue top last for ever

okay, thanks for the advice fellers. Looks like I gotta save up a bit

i have had good luck with Delco Marine ones... have an indicator on them too.

Walmart deep cycle batteries aren't that bad. Buy the one with the 3 year warranty and keep the receipt. Between my boat and my dad's boat (8 batteries total), we've gone through probably 5 or 6 of them over the last 10 years and they do work well enough. we quit using them in his boat because we wanted matched sets as he set up a 4 battery 24 volt system in there as we run the crap out of the bowmount in tournaments, and we have a dedicated deep cycle battery for all the electronics but when we've used them they work well.

okay, now im going on a thinking journey again. What would be the best batteries to get (2) if I had the two lights to power, my 55lb trolling motor, and a cd player? I plan on getting a good deep cycle for the motor, probably the blue top. Would the red top power the lights and a cd player for a few hours? or should I look into a deep cycle for those as well?

I'd use deep cycle for everything but the big motor cranking battery. Install a three bank on-board charger (x2 deep-cycles, x1 cranking battery), plug it in when you're back at the house after each trip, and you will be ready for the next adventure.

Thanks for that tip JD, I however run a tiller and do not need a battery for my motor. I have been spending a ton of time online searching ways to do this and I think I will take your guys advice and run a deep cycle up front for the trolling motor and the red top for my running lights and radio