Muddydogs has been scratching his head, wondering what kind of idiot places heavy stuff in the front of a boat. Short answer is that I'm fat, too dammn fat. which I why I got one of the longest and widest boats made. With me and a second large person on the rear bench and my 350ish lb brother sitting up front, 5-6 ft. from the bow's tip, just rear of the factory deck, boat came up on plan easier, and balanced out beautiful. I would not have believed it either. Currently, I have a spare Gr 31 FLA and a 5 gal gas in this spot.
What Muddydogs has said about about most boaters using FLA's is true, I'm glad his have lasted as long as they have. I'm also seeing lots of guys 'killing' thier batteries, getting new ones quite often, some every season. I suspect abuse,i.e. charging ignorance and a lot of severe DOD's (running the trolling motor til battery is drained or nearly so.)using the typical Marine 'hy-brid' jar.
I was looking at the Sam's Club AGM as mentioned, in addition I really do not like the idea of FLA's up front.
What we (I) now know is that SC AGM is not really a true deep-cycle AGM, still not a real bad choice, but Lifeline (and, I sure others) are a true deep-cycle.
I'm not spending any big money (2-3 Lifelines or SC) until I get a handle on how to charge. A marine, waterproof charger that can be mounted on-board is required and this very well may be a problem.
Still thinking about getting a single SC AGM to use as 12 v power/jump-start pack.
