[PAVABill]

Some questions do need answered....
1. What kind of boat are you trying to mount to? (Length? Weight-including you, a fishing partner and all your gear?)
2. What type of waterway do you fish most often?
3. What depths are you fishing in?

The are many available modifications to be made to mount/house your trolling motor mount. This is only limited by, space on the bow section of the boat, durability of the boat material you are mounting to and your imganiation.
As for waterways, if you mainly fish low current waterways there may be no significant need for you to jump to a larger TM (excluding fishing in windy conditions). Exception to consider is overall weight of occupants, boat and gear.
And now the often overlooked aspect...Water depth. If you are fishing in shallow water with rocky or stumpy bottoms you really need to consider a TM with a gator mount or something similar (break-away style). Finding just a replacement mount is costly but in the case of TM with outer tubes, it gets more expensive when you need to replace a mount and outter tube. Also, in my experience, if you fish waters with heavy vegetation be wary of the digital types. There is a tendoncies to "cook" the boards. I personal prefer the reliable pull/pull cable foot control.

As decent TM for the money, especially on a small boat, would be the Motor Guide Freshwater Series. That model should fall in your price range with an upgrade gator mount.

Just my opinion based on my own personal experience.

[Sonny.Barile]

I live in Secaucs. I have a West Marine and a Boaters World both within 30 minutes of my house. .......bt neither displays any of the models I am interested in. If I want to see the whole line-up I would have to drive over 2 hours to Cabelas or Bass Pro........

[Cthulhu]

Couple of months ago, I upgraded my old 765 MX Minn Kota to a 70 lbs-thrust Edge. All I can say is that I am 100% satisfied with the new motor. The old one was on my boat ('88 Ranger 680 T) since 1989, and I never ever had a single problem with it. That's nearly 20 years of fairly regular use with not so much as a blown contact. Only reason I upgraded is that I now fish bigger bodies of water that experience stronger winds and currents, so I needed to up the power on the front end of the boat. I'm 100% biased, but I'd say you really can't go wrong with the Minn Kota Edge. Cabela's has some refurbished ones on sale for a couple hundred bucks less than normal, and that's the route I went.
Good luck!