“It was a chilly, late afternoon in the winter of 2008 when I experienced firsthand the terror of a dead battery on ‘Big W’.”

It was the end of a successful day of angling; being mid-week, Lake Wivenhoe was empty of competition, and I was about to head home just before dark with a great catch of Bass.

Wrrr. Click click. Wrrrr. Nothing. I tried again. Nothing. My worst nightmare, being caught in the middle of the lake with a dead battery had become a reality. I was a good 3km from land and the sun was setting quickly. The boys and I got out the oars and paddled for our lives. In the dark we reached the shore, exhausted, and I swore my batteries would always be fully charged and maintained for future Big W outings.

Dead batteries aren’t an infrequent occurrence on Lake Wivenhoe. Because combustion engines are prohibited, lots of us keen fishermen have set-up little 3.5m – 4.5m electric boats powered just by batteries. We put a lot of thought into our little vessels and equip them with things like:

• fish finders                   
• livewells
• GPS’s
• Bilge pumps
• lights

The problem is, even though all we can chew up 2 -3 100amp/hour batteries in a day, we don’t always put a lot of thought into our charging requirements.

Lake Wivenhoe is a huge body of water, prone to dangerous currents from water flowing over spillways and steep waves from sudden winds. Being caught out in the lake with dead batteries could not only ruin my day – it could potentially be deadly – or even cost me a tournament win!

So now I rely on a Ctek M300 to power up the batteries for my Minn Kota 55lb Riptide bowmount and Minn Kota 55lb Maxxum transom mount electric motors.  

Using a Ctek M300 means I always feel safe, and I know dead batteries won’t ruin my day.

Why does Justin use the Ctek M300?

• 25amps of power to charge his 3 parallel configured Century Pro 600 batteries
• Quick charging (about 8 hours for his 3 batteries) so he can charge up overnight and get out for day after day of great fishing
• Foolproof monitoring automatically stops charging when the batteries are full, so he can leave it on overnight – or even forget about it for days – and never have to worry about overcharged batteries
• Reverse polarity protected, short-circuit proof and it doesn’t spark, so he always feel safe
• No production of galvanic currents to he knows it won’t harm his propeller