What to connect to each battery

[corrado4]

I have a small 17' fish n' ski boat with a 150hp outboard. I obviously have a cranking battery and one deep cycle, both marine grade. I keep the boat docked in the water but don't have power at the dock for charging. So I bought an extra deep cycle and rotate the batteries each day I go out fishing to charge them up, I leave the cranking on the boat since that is charged by the motor.
My question is should I have the chartplotter/fishfinder, bilge and aerator hooked up to the cranking battery or deep cycle? At the moment only the trolling motor runs off the deep cycle. My thinking is to only use the cranking battery for just that, cranking and hook everything else up to the deep cycle. I don't use the aerator much as I mostly catch and release and don't do tournaments. I do have a cover on the boat but in heavy storms water does still get into the bilge so I know the pump does kick on now and then (have an issue with a brand new cover but that is another story and being taken care of were I bought it).
Just curious to see what is recommended.

 

[Barnacle_Bill]

Re: What to connect to each battery

To maximize trolling time and avoid interference on your DF from the TM, leave it as is.

 

[DRIFTER_016]

Re: What to connect to each battery

On my boat I have the motor hooked up to the cranking battery and everything else hooked up to one of two deep cycles. I have an onboard 3 bank charger and am able to recharge between trips as the boat is stored at home.
With all the accessories hooked to the deep cycles you are pretty much assured that your boat will still start if the bilge has been running due to excessive rain or some other source of water buildup. If your swapping deep cycles any way there should not be any issues and you will know your boat won't have a dead starting battery when you want to hit the lake.

I have had it this way for 17 years without any interference problems and have not had any problems with run time as I am running 2 group 27 deep cycles on a 12 volt Minn Kota Autopilot and can usually get 3 days on a charge if I have to.

 

[PondTunes]

Re: What to connect to each battery

your plotter and areator are pretty low draw and if you're not having problems running them off the cranking battery leave it as is. Your bilge imo should always be powered nobody wants to fish their boat off the bottom!