Hey Rodger, your on your way now! Here's my thoughts on your questions.

>I am going to add a trolling motor to my toon. I am also
>going to put a graph on it. I was wondering should I run them
>on seperate batteries or from the same battery. Why or why
>not?

I think you should be able to run them both on the same battery. A graph really doesn't use that much juice. I can run mine for several days on an 8AH battery and it still doesn't need a charge.

>I was thinking of just running the transducer and temp to the
>trolling motor. I see that you guys do them seperate is that
>because you are not allowed to run a trolling motor at your
>tournaments or is there another reason?

Yep, that's probably the main reason. I hadn't thought of it that way before! Another reason I have mine on a shaft that I can pull out of the water is... I like to get up in the stuff sometimes and anything in the water will foul with trash and weeds. If you were to use a TM all the time I don't see a reason why you couldn't mount it there.

>Do you guys think you will ever allow the use of a trolling
>motor in your events? I have a bad back and can not row all
>day. I would love to fish an event or 2 with you guys if you
>ever did.

I don't think the use of trolling motors is something we (BnT)are planning in the near future. We would like to stay as close to our float tubing roots as possible so it's human power only at tournaments.

>I have the ODC 816 can you tell me what graph will fit and
>what ones to avoid. I am not going to get the top of the line
>unit something in the 80 to 150 range should work great for
>me.

I'm sure any fish finder in your price range would work. I had some bad luck with a Hummingbird Piranah that went dead in a little rainstorm. In Hummingbirds defense though it was a 2 year old unit that worked fine until I got it wet. I now have an Eagle FishMark 320 and love it.

If you search the float tube forum you should find many answers and opinions on everything you are asking about.
I did a search for fish finder. here is just one of the results I got.
http://www.calfishing.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=6&topic_id=35769&mode=full

Hope to see you on the water soon :7

MT