From Jay:
> Yep that’s what it looks like – trolling motors mounted on “shallow-water anchors.” They’re made by a MS company called Magnolia Tooling owned by crappie fisherman named Jonathan Johns, who made them for Scoping crappie. But I bet you can see real quick that they’d be great for much more than just that.
> Talked to Jonathan and a MS bass-head named Blake Daugherty (^) who’s had ’em for 6 months – said he’s never going back. Starting with Blake:
> “Since LiveScope has pretty much taken over and dominated [the crappie scene], there’s times on that LiveScope when you’re not able to perform with it because your boat’s going too fast on these windy days. Guys started mounting trolling motors on the back of their boats, which is just a complete eyesore and a hassle. The reason for that was to be able to stop your boat if you’re going with that wind without spooking the fish in front of you.
> “If you’re boat is going too fast and you can’t get a jig on it, you have to spin your trolling motor around, turn it on high, kick it backwards to stop your boat or slow it down, then spin back around and try to find your fish and hope you haven’t spooked him. That just doesn’t work – you’re gonna spook the fish, you’re gonna blow ’em out.
> “Jonathan designed these brackets that go directly to your Power-Pole [or Raptors]. What it is is 2 40-lb thrust Minn Kota trolling motors…you have a stomper button switch on the front [deck] of your boat.
> “…you’re going along…[Scoping] for these [suspended] fish…out there in front of you…if you’re going with the wind and you need to stop…you can deploy your Power-Poles down or keep ’em deployed, and you can feather that button to slow your boat down, or stop it, or back it up without ever spooking the fish up there in front of you.
> “…especially these pressured fish around here, if that fish 10-15′ in front of your boat…you’re talking about a 20′ boat, these 2 trolling motors are now 35-40′ away from these fish which is a safe-enough distance that it doesn’t bother them. So we’re able to stop our boat without them ever knowing that we’re there. And then back up if they’re swimming….”
Some more info from Jay:
> Jonathan says he runs a 36v troller using 3 12v batteries, and he just hooks his 2 Brake motors up to one of the 12v batteries – “since you don’t use them all day long.”
> Blake says the units “do not affect the performance of Power-Poles” and Jonathan backed that up.
> His company does install ’em and it takes about 90 minutes, but he says the self-install isn’t hard: “The way we fix ’em up, we have the wire plug ‘n play ends on them, it comes with an instruction sheet, it’s really not hard at all. Maybe the hardest part is pulling wire from the front to the back of the boat for that footswitch.”
> Amazingly, the kits he sells – with both motors – top out at $1,350. Check ’em out at crappiebrakes.com. If you order a pair (like I am!), make sure you tell ’em you want them to say Bass Brakes on ’em, not crappie!
Maybe they can fit the word “walleye” on there instead hahaha.
It looks like they don’t need to be mounted on Poles…I’ve seen multiple other pics on their Facebook page with ‘em attached all different ways:
