Home Forums Fishing Freshwater side mount gas engine for canoe

Anyone use one? I use a 44lb trolling motor now but it usually won't last the day fishing. What do you think of the little gas ones?

For less than you would spend on a gas motor you could buy a better battery and fish all day.

I use a little "canoe" size battery. Full size batteries are heavy, I'm guessing heavier than a small gas motor.

Lithium trolling motor batteries cut the weight in half.

There expensive but that’s you best answer

Suzuki DF2.5 is the lightest name brand outboard in production that I know of....weight is around 30#. No idea how fast it would push a canoe, but it'll top out my 1236 jon around 6mph.

I can fish all day on a tank of gas most of the time (holds about a quart). It will suck fuel down a lot faster if you run it hard, though. The second half of the throttle isn't worth the fuel consumption for the bit of extra speed you gain, imo.

They work great on a side mount. I think they are easier to access on the side than even on a square end canoe. I had a side mount on my 17’ Grumman canoe and ran a 4 hp twin cylinder Evinrude on mine. With that much motor you had to be a little careful with weight distribution and the way it would torque the canoe to the side. Now I have a 29.5 pound air cooled Honda 4 stroke outboard that I use on a jon boat, but it would be ideal for a canoe. It runs a looong time on the on board tank of gas.

2.3 Honda.

29#, lighter than a battery.....tough to beat.

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I'd like to try one of those

And maybe stick a solar battery maintainer on top to give a tiny bit of extra life.

It's a great little outboard. Air cooled, 4 stroke, sips fuel.

Theoretically you understand, if would you mount that little 2.3 Honda outboard on a board, put on a pair of waders and run it around your beachfront a bit and it will blow the silt and last falls leaves off your sand and gravel farther out into deeper water or over to the neighbor. Being air cooled, there is no water pump to clog up.