Well good luck with the new boat. I think you will like it better as it will handle bigger water. The cuddy is great for the kids. Mine used to sleep in it when I fished. One of the reasons I got one. Also a great place to store your gear. Good luck with the electronics. Do you have 2 batteries in the boat that you can alternate to charge off the big motor? I don't have much experience with the trolling plate but like Brad (Nemisis) said the bags are what all the Lake O captains use. Gotta be a reason. You could go onto www.glangler.com and go into the "Lets talk salmon fishing" board and do a search on past posts to get feedback or put out a new post. Good luck.
I had the same problem that you are trying to avoid. I had a 75 Merc. and 5 Merc. kicker. I installed an alternator in the 5 kicker to charge the battery while trolling; it was an accessory of the kicker and was sufficient to keep the battery up. Also installed a volt meter that gave me the state of charge of the battery, the volt meter was one that reads from about 8 to 16 volts from West Marine. My present setup is 15 hp 4 stroke electric kicker and it keeps the batteries charged.
