I have a Big Tuna and mount my trolling motor using a trolling motor mount in the two rod holders on either side behind the seat and use a tiller extension to control speed and direction. The big advantage to this setup is I have speed control. I use a small gel battery used to power a wheelchair and go half a day on it or I can put in the big battery and easily go all day on a single charge. The main reason I get so much more battery life is that I am not running the motor at full speed, which greatly extends my battery life. Your set is quite nicely done. I also saw a guy take the head control and mount it on the side of his float tube so he had speed control. I would take that head and mount it by your seat and you will find that not only will you get a lot more battery life, you also add a lot of finesse to your handling capability.
I agree! Running at 1/2 - 2/3 power will give you endless running time. I really suggest lithium if you can afford it. 50 Ah's weighs all of 14 lbs. You get to use up 100% of the charge with no harm to the battery.
Kevin, I just gotta say, you are one lucky bastard! I watch almost all of your videos. Your reviews are extremely helpful. And you are a dynamite fisherman. You are living the dream of a bass fisherman with that kayak. And now you even have a trolling motor handy for you. I love your videos and keep up the great work. Have a good one sir, and thank you!
Hi Kevin, Congratulations on a nice clean/neat install. Like the remote. Many thanks for sharing. I also use a manual cable steering system on my kayak as a backup to my linear actuator steering system with tilt and trim. I used round/smooth weed eater cable that is the same size as your stainless steel cable. It is less abrasive and you may look at it as a possible alternative. I am working on a prototype to convert the Minn Kota 5 speed units to variable speed. So far the testing looks good. John
If you can afford this set up, you can afford a boat. My first was a 59 StarCraft 15' runabout that I cut the bow open, added front and rear decks and carpeted them, made a very nice little fishing boat. Total investment, $1100 and a bunch of work. It had a 50 HP two stroke, ran about 45 mph.
I know this is an old Post but this is an excellent build man. It's what I want to do. I have an old troller, 20lb thrust but enough for my purposes. I want to take the control head off of it so it isn't way high up advertising itself, then remount the controls and run a steering linkage. Be proud man, well done.
I have an old town kayak angler Xl. Has the removable floor so naturally I drilled a hole in it and put rubber grommets in it and slid the motor up through. No leaks at all. Mounted a waterproof box on my right side with a speed controller so perfect for slow moving fishing. Also added a minnkota deckhand anchor with 100 feet of 1000lb coated kevlar rope. And the 80AH battery keeps me out all day
Also you might want to check it a producer called a bull nose(I believe) but it's a rudder that mounts to the shaft of the motor, it helps eliminate the "Pushing" that you get from a trolling motor. I have one on my pontoon boat and it helps a lot.
I know this is super late, and probably doesn’t happen often, but if you flip the yak, the weight of the battery will pop your hatch open. I understand that the battery sits upright nice and clean, but you should still consider a battery strap with a simple buckle. Mount it to the wood that you have in there. That way it will keep the battery pulled towards the bottom of the yak if ever flipped. Love the setup man!
I know I am responding to a very old post but I have this setup on my big rig, I did flip and the battery did open hatch allowing rear of kayak to sink. I was able to swim kayak over to area of river where I could stand waste deep and remove battery and motor, then I pulled kayak up on a log and bailed it. A 2 hour ordeal in alligator infested waters. I am currently looking for ways to get battery out of hatch and have quick disconnect. I would rather lose the battery than the whole kayak.
Kevin I have a similar setup but on a non description Future Beach fishing yak. I didn't have the remote. I place the control head in a rod holder next to me. I steer with a push pull stick until I can set up foot pedals. I also included a release mechanism and a tilt rope. Works great. Nice work. Very professional.
Nice video Kevin! Yes you can be proud of this work, all the facilities are integrated very well in the kayak. I'm motorising my own kayak this time, and you gave me some ideas. Your mistakes are usefull for me :-). Happy you did some :-). So thanks to you.
That’s just awesome and exactly what I want to do to my Kayak now. Mine has a rudder system on it but I think I might be able to retrofit the pull cables setup to turn the motor shaft. I’m mostly impressed with the mount you made to fit the transom to. Great work. Instead of just the one forward and reverse speed I think I’d like to build a speed controller to adjust speed in forward and reverse from A control knob where I’m sitting. Love you’re work, well done 👍
I HAVE A BIG RIG ALSO.... WITH MOTOR ALSO.... THESE KAYAKS ARE HARDER TO USE THEN MY OTHER . BUT WE GET THE STABLE STANDING FISHING..... SO I LOVE IT....
I did a system very similar to this one, I used an adjustable type spring made from hardware from home depot on the pedals to give it power stirring of sorts. That way if I wanted to straighten out I would be fighting left leg against right leg to get it right. I just let off one side of the pedal. The spring straightens the pedals / motor out for me. and it's alot less work.
I like the set up. I think I'll use bicycle brake or gear shift cables and route/ mount them on the exterior. Also use or fab the trolling motor mount out of aluminum.090. An upgrade would be 2 lithium batteries in parallel.
I'd love a set up similar to this...but even easier. I'd like to just have the trolling motor mounted straight, without any steering. I'd have no problem using my paddle to get me turned in the right direction and then just flip the motor on to move me forward. I think it'd be pretty easy to steer while moving using my paddle. Super cool set up, though. Congrats.
Kevin, great! Just a thought that what you might do is leave the set of foot pegs that are attached to the cables running back to the TM, just leave them on and push them all the way forward when not it use, then leave the non-attached second set on behind them. I suppose this could be done in the other order depending on leg length and how far forward you have to set the pegs up for paddling. But, this way you wouldn't have to replace them, remove hardware and so on. Brad
You could add a line from one pedal up to the front around to the other pedal and make it a push pull system, with an extra attachment to hook to your foot and make it a one foot control
This is a smarter setup than the horizontal transversal wooden motor holder design people do for cheap. The only downside is that you will need two guys to put in in the water if you launch from a steep terrain. Itherwise you have to carry this setup one by one and assemble it on the water. i do that on mine
+Kevin Bullington How do you troll then? if you want to, cause I wouldn't want to troll 3mph or can you set the speed however fast or slow you wanna go?
Thanks for the video. Are you able to lift the motor when in shallow water? I want to do the same setup to my big tuna kayak but I always beach launch and I need to be able to launch with the motor up and then lower after the break. Can you also elaborate a little more on the electrical part? And last thing can you please list the remote control name or amazon link?
Add a couple smaller Solar Panels above your battery box slightly angled down toward the trolling motor from the back of your seat, and you could essentially increase your range and operating time indefinately, during the day time anyway.
That is such a cool setup. I don't trust myself though. Im looking into buying my first kayak and i'd love to be able to using a trolling motor with it.
Now to do this in Florida you need... -Title the kayak as a boat (requires builders certificate/proof of ownership paperwork, which most people don't even have) -Register the kayak with the state after getting title -Boater ID card since you're operating a motor boat -Flares (or other signaling device) if operating in salt water, and noise signal (whistle is fine) in addition to your PFD
Did a nice clean job. I have yet to see anybody use tension springs at the motor control wires, if you were to step on both petals for some reason the springs would take up some tension and possibly save something from breaking.
Great job, nice clean set up. New sub I have a large kayak a beast to paddle ,was thinking of selling it but I think going this way should be better and cheaper that a Peddle kayak.
I do my battery the same way but I if I have no room I use gorrilla duct tape believe or not it works to keep stuff slideing the down side it doesn't distrubite weight I also use it for my keel nice setup keep up the good work ,
There are some pretty important parts left in the top part of the trolling motor. By keeping those important parts, your battery life would be pretty good, by discarding them, a good deep cycle batt. Will only last about an hour max.
This is beyond impressive. I have a cheap dolphin closed top kayak and I feel like it already sits too low in the water to be able to make a system like this. Maybe I should consider an open top instead. I'm not much of an angler but I do enjoy watercraft and being out on the water. so something like this would be amazing
Also something else is you could rig something up to where you hit shallow water and you can pull the motor up to horizontal, so you can skim if you want. Looks like it does come up, just find a way to pull that pin manually and a pulley system to pull the motor up
Just an observation I had: With the steering cables attached below the pivot point on the motor shaft, if the motor hits ground or something hard underwater there will likely be damage. If the cables were attached above the pivot point then hitting something would cause the motor to flip up out of the way and avoid damage.
You should look into Nissan Leaf Li-On cells. They are the best Cells for DIY kayak projects. You need at least two at 64Ah , 7.4V each. You get more power for about 1/4 of the weight of the battery you have installed. I have 4 cells for a total of 1KWh on my setup, for what it seems like endless power...
a kayak is still a small boat that will capsize easily. A motor does not change that. And Ultimate series from Native Watercraft has a double hull and and not be turned over in any normal use (sitting or standing).
Looks awesome, the only thing that I see failing in the field are the eye bolts for the steering. I see one is bent already. May want to try and find some stronger metal.
good set up for a cheaper cost than those 1000 dollars bixpy and torpeedo island hopper motors. Now install a solar panel on top of that plastic battery kayak cover and the battery charges itself without any worries all day.
Kevin, please provide more information on the switch. Also have you thought about a variable resistor to control the speed? Outstanding video and craftsmanship on your modifications.
what's up Kevin, so I got the Field & Stream Eagle Talon 120 Kayak. if you don't mind checking it out and giving some pointers on where to mount a trolling motor.
Nice!!! Probably the best setup I’ve seen on UA-cam land. Simple and clean!
I have a Big Tuna and mount my trolling motor using a trolling motor mount in the two rod holders on either side behind the seat and use a tiller extension to control speed and direction. The big advantage to this setup is I have speed control. I use a small gel battery used to power a wheelchair and go half a day on it or I can put in the big battery and easily go all day on a single charge. The main reason I get so much more battery life is that I am not running the motor at full speed, which greatly extends my battery life. Your set is quite nicely done. I also saw a guy take the head control and mount it on the side of his float tube so he had speed control. I would take that head and mount it by your seat and you will find that not only will you get a lot more battery life, you also add a lot of finesse to your handling capability.
I agree! Running at 1/2 - 2/3 power will give you endless running time. I really suggest lithium if you can afford it. 50 Ah's weighs all of 14 lbs. You get to use up 100% of the charge with no harm to the battery.
Kevin, I just gotta say, you are one lucky bastard! I watch almost all of your videos. Your reviews are extremely helpful. And you are a dynamite fisherman. You are living the dream of a bass fisherman with that kayak. And now you even have a trolling motor handy for you. I love your videos and keep up the great work. Have a good one sir, and thank you!
You plucked half your idea out of my head and gave me a few new idea's, thank you and great job fella.
The creativity on this one is superb. Very nice very neat. Tight work man
That is the perfect setup, you definitely did a great job with that! I want to try to do something like that.
Thank God someone used their head on their setup. Love the way ya did this yak. Thanks for sharing with the world
Hi Kevin,
Congratulations on a nice clean/neat install. Like the remote. Many thanks for sharing.
I also use a manual cable steering system on my kayak as a backup to my linear actuator steering system with tilt and trim. I used round/smooth weed eater cable that is the same size as your stainless steel cable. It is less abrasive and you may look at it as a possible alternative.
I am working on a prototype to convert the Minn Kota 5 speed units to variable speed. So far the testing looks good.
John
Yours is the best ..
let me know when you see this , I have some questions.. us yak’ies gotta stick together
thank you for giving me awesome ideas for kayak fishing. since I can't afford a boat. keep the videos coming
If you can afford this set up, you can afford a boat. My first was a 59 StarCraft 15' runabout that I cut the bow open, added front and rear decks and carpeted them, made a very nice little fishing boat. Total investment, $1100 and a bunch of work. It had a 50 HP two stroke, ran about 45 mph.
getting a little used Jon boat would be great for fishing and crabbing
I know this is an old Post but this is an excellent build man. It's what I want to do. I have an old troller, 20lb thrust but enough for my purposes. I want to take the control head off of it so it isn't way high up advertising itself, then remount the controls and run a steering linkage. Be proud man, well done.
I have an old town kayak angler Xl. Has the removable floor so naturally I drilled a hole in it and put rubber grommets in it and slid the motor up through. No leaks at all. Mounted a waterproof box on my right side with a speed controller so perfect for slow moving fishing. Also added a minnkota deckhand anchor with 100 feet of 1000lb coated kevlar rope. And the 80AH battery keeps me out all day
Also you might want to check it a producer called a bull nose(I believe) but it's a rudder that mounts to the shaft of the motor, it helps eliminate the "Pushing" that you get from a trolling motor. I have one on my pontoon boat and it helps a lot.
You should be proud! It's a aweosme set up a instruction vid on how you did the transom and electrical parts 😅
I know this is super late, and probably doesn’t happen often, but if you flip the yak, the weight of the battery will pop your hatch open. I understand that the battery sits upright nice and clean, but you should still consider a battery strap with a simple buckle. Mount it to the wood that you have in there. That way it will keep the battery pulled towards the bottom of the yak if ever flipped. Love the setup man!
I know I am responding to a very old post but I have this setup on my big rig, I did flip and the battery did open hatch allowing rear of kayak to sink. I was able to swim kayak over to area of river where I could stand waste deep and remove battery and motor, then I pulled kayak up on a log and bailed it. A 2 hour ordeal in alligator infested waters. I am currently looking for ways to get battery out of hatch and have quick disconnect. I would rather lose the battery than the whole kayak.
How do you lift the motor when coming into shallow water or beaching
Kevin I have a similar setup but on a non description Future Beach fishing yak. I didn't have the remote. I place the control head in a rod holder next to me. I steer with a push pull stick until I can set up foot pedals. I also included a release mechanism and a tilt rope. Works great. Nice work. Very professional.
Thats the nicest trolling motor mount i have seen yet ..
Needs the - in the water test run - at the end of this video. Great job and very creative way to propel your kayak.
Excellent job. Best home built set up I have seen yet.
The best trolling motor setup I've seen. Badass.
I love those kipawa propellers! It adds a lot of power to the throttle action and a lot less weed tangle.
+DeliriousIntentions very nice props. Treats me very well.
Not a kayak guy but definitely admire your set up.
Nice video Kevin! Yes you can be proud of this work, all the facilities are integrated very well in the kayak. I'm motorising my own kayak this time, and you gave me some ideas. Your mistakes are usefull for me :-). Happy you did some :-). So thanks to you.
Wow! The end product has a really clean finish! Great job!
+Nate NHB thanks Nate!
Nice setup getting ideas to do my Big Rig Thanks for taking us alone
and I like that you can still tip the trolling motor up for shallow water
That’s just awesome and exactly what I want to do to my Kayak now. Mine has a rudder system on it but I think I might be able to retrofit the pull cables setup to turn the motor shaft.
I’m mostly impressed with the mount you made to fit the transom to. Great work.
Instead of just the one forward and reverse speed I think I’d like to build a speed controller to adjust speed in forward and reverse from A control knob where I’m sitting.
Love you’re work, well done 👍
I HAVE A BIG RIG ALSO.... WITH MOTOR ALSO.... THESE KAYAKS ARE HARDER TO USE THEN MY OTHER . BUT WE GET THE STABLE STANDING FISHING..... SO I LOVE IT....
WOW... Excellent video, gives me all sorts of good ideas for when I purchase my first Kayak!
Well done! I like it! I'm gonna use this setup. Thanks
Simple yet elegant solution. Great job.
I did a system very similar to this one, I used an adjustable type spring made from hardware from home depot on the pedals to give it power stirring of sorts.
That way if I wanted to straighten out I would be fighting left leg against right leg to get it right. I just let off one side of the pedal. The spring straightens the pedals / motor out for me. and it's alot less work.
this is the best way I've seen to do this so far. good job guy.
I luv the way you did your Trolling motor! I think I'd consider a "Throttle" on it vs "On/Full Power - Off". Nice work all the same...
I like the set up. I think I'll use bicycle brake or gear shift cables and route/ mount them on the exterior. Also use or fab the trolling motor mount out of aluminum.090. An upgrade would be 2 lithium batteries in parallel.
Awesome thought process! Thanks for sharing this idea. Great video. This is exactly what UA-cam was made for. Keep up the great work.
You should do a complete build with materials and wiring instructions. Very cool man.
thanks for the help. I've been looking for ways to rig my trolling motor to my kayak. Your video has been the best
Really clean rigging. Very impressive!!
I'd love a set up similar to this...but even easier. I'd like to just have the trolling motor mounted straight, without any steering. I'd have no problem using my paddle to get me turned in the right direction and then just flip the motor on to move me forward. I think it'd be pretty easy to steer while moving using my paddle. Super cool set up, though. Congrats.
Kevin, great! Just a thought that what you might do is leave the set of foot pegs that are attached to the cables running back to the TM, just leave them on and push them all the way forward when not it use, then leave the non-attached second set on behind them. I suppose this could be done in the other order depending on leg length and how far forward you have to set the pegs up for paddling. But, this way you wouldn't have to replace them, remove hardware and so on. Brad
You could add a line from one pedal up to the front around to the other pedal and make it a push pull system, with an extra attachment to hook to your foot and make it a one foot control
This is a smarter setup than the horizontal transversal wooden motor holder design people do for cheap. The only downside is that you will need two guys to put in in the water if you launch from a steep terrain. Itherwise you have to carry this setup one by one and assemble it on the water. i do that on mine
Pretty slick.
Clean. Can't wait to see how you utilize it on the water. Very nice!
I'll include some on the water video in my next fishing outing
I'll include some on the water video in my next fishing outing
Wow. That is an amazing setup. Iv been looking for a way to use my endura max on my kayak. This is so perfect and cleanly put together.
now thats cool.... makes me wanna get a kayak.....
Thank you. Kayaks are very fun and affordable when compared to boats.
+Kevin Bullington How do you troll then? if you want to, cause I wouldn't want to troll 3mph or can you set the speed however fast or slow you wanna go?
put a small power plant on it and never run out of electricity,but, you may run out of motor
Thanks for the video. Are you able to lift the motor when in shallow water? I want to do the same setup to my big tuna kayak but I always beach launch and I need to be able to launch with the motor up and then lower after the break. Can you also elaborate a little more on the electrical part? And last thing can you please list the remote control name or amazon link?
Add a couple smaller Solar Panels above your battery box slightly angled down toward the trolling motor from the back of your seat, and you could essentially increase your range and operating time indefinately, during the day time anyway.
This is the best trolling on kayak ever.
That is such a cool setup. I don't trust myself though. Im looking into buying my first kayak and i'd love to be able to using a trolling motor with it.
Great set up! I've been thinking of doing this same thing on my kayak with the same idea for the pedals. Well done.
Great job, very clean install
Thank you
Now to do this in Florida you need...
-Title the kayak as a boat (requires builders certificate/proof of ownership paperwork, which most people don't even have)
-Register the kayak with the state after getting title
-Boater ID card since you're operating a motor boat
-Flares (or other signaling device) if operating in salt water, and noise signal (whistle is fine) in addition to your PFD
add springs to both eye bolts and attach to the other end to the hull in a fixed position. Auto center on the motor and pedals.....
Very clean and like its meant to be there this is the setup ive been looking to do.
That's one nice setup I wish I had it im fishing off a little paddle boat
Thank you bud. Paddle boats are fun too.
Very clean setup! Nice job
Thank you very much
That's one of the best setups I have seen.
Did a nice clean job. I have yet to see anybody use tension springs at the motor control wires, if you were to step on both petals for some reason the springs would take up some tension and possibly save something from breaking.
Very nice setup my friend! Nice and clean job!💙🎣🤙
That’s really creative! Good job and thanks for sharing 🙂
You can also hook up a small solar panel somwhere on the kayak and hook it to the battery to keep it charged all the time
+Nate NHB I definitely need to look into the solar panel thing. I wonder how quickly it will charge the battery though.
Great job mate. Your remote idea kicks ass.
Nice. Think I'd put a spring on each of the 'rudder' cables to take up slack.
+RelentlessHomesteading that's a great idea. Thank you for the comment!
Your welcome == thanks for the video
Really awesome bro, yout did a great job. Excellent video, explanation and in depth review of what toy did
Really nice setup, looks like that would work out great on the water
Thank you Shane.
Great job, nice clean set up.
New sub I have a large kayak a beast to paddle ,was thinking of selling it but I think going this way should be better and cheaper that a Peddle kayak.
Slick setup man..very nice work and great tutorial!
I do my battery the same way but I if I have no room I use gorrilla duct tape believe or not it works to keep stuff slideing the down side it doesn't distrubite weight I also use it for my keel nice setup keep up the good work ,
There are some pretty important parts left in the top part of the trolling motor. By keeping those important parts, your battery life would be pretty good, by discarding them, a good deep cycle batt. Will only last about an hour max.
I like the video! Great job! I have a big tuna and have been thinking of ways to incorporate a trolling motor.
This is beyond impressive. I have a cheap dolphin closed top kayak and I feel like it already sits too low in the water to be able to make a system like this. Maybe I should consider an open top instead. I'm not much of an angler but I do enjoy watercraft and being out on the water. so something like this would be amazing
Clean build. Nice work
You really did your homework very sweet setup
Also something else is you could rig something up to where you hit shallow water and you can pull the motor up to horizontal, so you can skim if you want. Looks like it does come up, just find a way to pull that pin manually and a pulley system to pull the motor up
Just an observation I had:
With the steering cables attached below the pivot point on the motor shaft, if the motor hits ground or something hard underwater there will likely be damage.
If the cables were attached above the pivot point then hitting something would cause the motor to flip up out of the way and avoid damage.
+Lee Fazzani you are right except for the motor is locked in position so damage would occur regardless
Nicely done 👍
50 watt solar panel with built-in charge controller would keep that battery going all day
+Zachary Wartley Great idea buddy! Thanks for the tip Zachary
I love your set up if you put a switch in to use the motor on low settings like it come form the factory you will get a way longer run time
That is one sweet setup. I'm going to have to do this to one of my kayak. Thanks for the great video.
Great stuff. Best motor set up yet.
clean man. very clean. well done.
+jeremy hipp thanks a lot Jeremy!
very nice rig, professional install boss. thanks.
Nice setup! I like your Appomattox River Company stocker also! I bought my Jackson Zen and accessories from them.
You should look into Nissan Leaf Li-On cells. They are the best Cells for DIY kayak projects. You need at least two at 64Ah , 7.4V each. You get more power for about 1/4 of the weight of the battery you have installed. I have 4 cells for a total of 1KWh on my setup, for what it seems like endless power...
a kayak is still a small boat that will capsize easily. A motor does not change that. And Ultimate series from Native Watercraft has a double hull and and not be turned over in any normal use (sitting or standing).
WOW..... VERY NICE SET UP..... LIKE THE WIRELESS REMOTE IDEA..... DAM GOOD .....
Thanks man!
That's a clean install! Great job!
+FishSCTV thanks man!! Appreciate it
Looks awesome, the only thing that I see failing in the field are the eye bolts for the steering. I see one is bent already. May want to try and find some stronger metal.
good set up for a cheaper cost than those 1000 dollars bixpy and torpeedo island hopper motors. Now install a solar panel on top of that plastic battery kayak cover and the battery charges itself without any worries all day.
you could probably put a pitchier prop on there, It has torque to spare and you could get more speed out of it. the amp draw wouldn't go up much.
Awesome! I've got a Coosa HD I want to try this on. Nicely done.
+Ron Walton thanks Ron. I love the Coosa HD... I hope to own one soon
Awesome kayak bro. I’m gonna setup my coosa like this. Thanks for the idea!
Sweet setup! My Coosa needs one!
+Scott Riegert thanks scott
Kevin, please provide more information on the switch. Also have you thought about a variable resistor to control the speed? Outstanding video and craftsmanship on your modifications.
dang buddy, you just made me want to drop the $ on a big rig... Sweet setup! Thanks for posting a helpful detailed video.
what's up Kevin, so I got the Field & Stream Eagle Talon 120 Kayak. if you don't mind checking it out and giving some pointers on where to mount a trolling motor.
Faaark that's a wicked rig mate
Now that you have battery power you can hook up a small Bilge pump, nothing like having a little bit of insurance when on deep water.
Very nice job...thanks for sharing.