Best Trolling Motors 2024

Mount Types

Anglers should know about three different types of trolling motors:

• Engine mounted
• Transom mounted
• Bow mounted

Engine-mounted trolling motors have fallen largely out of favor. Most manufacturers have dropped them—they’re harder to steer with, somewhat tricky to install, and often negatively affected by chop and wind. We’d recommend avoiding them.

Transom-mounted motors are generally less expensive than their bow-mounted counterparts. They’re easy to install and easy to remove. They’re usually steered through a telescopic handle. Conversely, they tend to offer less power and fewer features than bow-mount trolling motors, and they attach less securely to your boat.

Bow-mount trolling motors are the most powerful and feature-dense trolling motors available. They’re often equipped with features like GPS anchoring (Spot-Lock), AutoPilot, and networking capabilities. They attach more securely than any other style of motor. Bow-mount motors are the most difficult to install; they also tend to be the most expensive, the heaviest, and the most difficult to remove from your boat.

Thrust and Power

You don’t necessarily need the most powerful trolling motor—you only need the right size trolling motor for your boat. 

Trolling motors are measured in pounds of thrust—the more pounds of thrust a trolling motor has, the bigger the vessel it can move. Typically, trolling motors range anywhere from 30 pounds of thrust to over 100 pounds of thrust. Minn Kota—maker of many of our favorite trolling motors—has a trolling motor size guide that we highly recommend you look at. The guide should help you choose the right trolling motor for your boat’s size.

Control Systems

Most trolling motors can be controlled in one of four ways:

• Telescopic handles
• Foot pedals
• Wireless remotes
• Apps

Telescopic handles are traditionally found on transom-mounted trolling motors. They can be swiveled to change the direction of the boat. Rotating the handle clockwise will move the boat forward—the more you rotate it, the more power the motor will output, and the faster the boat will go. Rotating the handle backwards will send the boat in reverse. Telescopic handles are very easy to use, but they typically don’t offer the same level of nuance as other control methods.

Foot pedals are the most common control system for bow-mount trolling motors. The most traditional style of foot pedal control is heel-toe, in which pressing down with your heel steers the motor left while pressing down with your toe steers it to the right. On feature-dense trolling motors, the foot pedals will often come equipped with buttons for GPS anchoring, auto-pilot, and more.

There are typically two ways of connecting foot pedals—wireless and cable-steered. Cable-steered foot pedals offer much greater precision, but there’s a limit to how far away you can be from your motor while steering it. Wireless foot pedals, on the other hand, offer a greater range but more connectivity issues and slightly less precision. 

Wireless remotes are generally only seen on feature-dense bow-mounted motors. They offer less precision than foot pedals but give you access to all of the features on your trolling motor. We tend to use foot pedals when we need precise, active steering and wireless remote control when we’re using features like GPS anchoring and auto pilot. 

Finally, apps vary in quality and design depending on the manufacturer. We don’t tend to use apps for motor control, but manufacturers like Minn Kota do a pretty good job—you can connect motors from big-name brands with the fish finders made by those companies and control everything from a single spot on your boat.

Heel-toe foot pedals are our favorite control method—they leave your hands free for fishing—but every angler has their own preference. No wrong answers here! 

Additional Features

There are a ton of additional features advertised by trolling motor manufacturers; we’re going to focus on the ones that most anglers care about:

GPS functionality is one of the most highly sought-out trolling motor features. There’s a variety of different GPS functions you might find, including:

• AutoPilot
• GPS Anchoring (Spot-Lock)
• Jogging, in which you can move in 5-foot increments to a spot you’re anchored to
• Chartplotting, in which you create routes your motor can follow in the future

Of these functions, GPS anchoring and jogging are the most highly sought-out—they’re perfect for when you’ve found a great fishing spot that you want to stick to, even in high winds and chop. These functions are technically challenging to implement, so trolling motors with GPS functionality are at the highest end of the price spectrum.

The next function to look at is how easy it is to adjust, stow, and deploy your motor. On one end of the spectrum, you have the motors where you have to do everything manually—this includes practically all transom-mounted trolling motors and most bow-mounted trolling motors.

In the middle, you have motors with stow and deploy assist technology (like lift assist)—mechanisms that make it easier to lift your motor. For top-of-the-line mobility features, the Minn Kota Ulterra is impossible to beat, with Auto Stow and Deploy, as well as automatic trimming.

Quick-release brackets are a key feature for bow-mounted trolling motors—you’ll want to install your motor using one of these brackets to make it easy to remove when not in use. Many trolling motors don’t come with quick-release brackets, but most manufacturers sell them.

Finally, anglers who are looking for a high-tech setup on their boat should prize wireless connectivity. Many modern trolling motors can connect to your phone, your fish finder, and other equipment you may have. Typically, big brands like Minn Kota, Lowrance, and Garmin are the best when it comes to wireless functionality.

Budget and Cost

Below, we give our picks for our favorite motors in the most common price ranges. These motors are based on some of our personal preferences, and the $1000+ category is particularly contested. Want the quietest motor possible? Go with the Ghost. Want Auto Stow and Deploy? Go with the Ulterra. Keep your preferences in mind at each price point—there are a ton of excellent motors available.

Entry-level models under $500

Newport Vessels Kayak Series

This is a transom-mounted trolling motor built for kayaks and small canoes. This motor is incredibly affordable, and the construction and quality of the motor are legitimately unbelievable for the price. 

Mid-range $500-$1000

Minn Kota PowerDrive

The PowerDrive has a ton of features, including built-in sonar, GPS, and stow and deploy assist. You’d be hard-pressed to find such another motor with that many features at this price range, and it’s built with the quality and care we’ve come to expect from Minn Kota.

High-end $1000+

Minn Kota Ultrex

For our money, the Ultrex is the best trolling motor on the market. Tons of features, a super responsive foot pedal, amazing construction, and quiet operation. We love it, and we think you will too.

If shopping on a tight budget, be sure to check out our guide to selecting the best cheap trolling motors - we cover maximizing value and performance at lower price points.

Conclusion

There are a lot of excellent trolling motors on the market. Here are the factors we consider the most important:

• Pounds of thrust (make sure they match the size of your boat—you don’t want too big or too small)
• Transom mount or bow mount
• Features (like GPS anchoring)
• Warranty and the quality of construction
• How the motor is controlled

Our favorite motor is the Minn Kota Ultrex —the runner-up for freshwater motors is the Lowrance Ghost, and our favorite budget motor is the Newport Vessels Kayak motor. We highly encourage you to read all of our motor reviews—you’re bound to find the one that’s right for you!