Posts: 1916
Location: Greenfield, WI | I fish quite abit. I have a Tuffy Esox Magnum and a Minnkota 50 Power drive. I was going through monster sized deep cycle batteries every year to year and a half. Plus towards the end of the batteries life, the usable time between charges was grossly reduced.
I bought my first Optima 5 years ago. I got FOUR solid seasons out of it, and it still was doing fine. The duration between charges was easily double that of the old monster sized deep cycles. The Optima could be "topped off" without adversly affecting its life. I never had to worry about it freezing. It was lighter to carry. It can be mounted in any position. It can NEVER leak.
Last year my trolling motor died. I replaced it with a Minnkota Auto Pilot. Expecting that it would require more juice to operate and realizing that the original Optima would't last forever, I saw that there was a magnum sized Optima Deep Cycle so I bought it and kept the original for an emergency back-up.
Both the usable duration between charges and the over all life of the battery far exceeded the price differential!
Initial price should not be the only consideration!
Edited by Steve Van Lieshout 5/9/2008 9:05 PM
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