By Kip Pollay - AZOD Fishing Field Staff.

Whether you are a recreational watercraft user or a tournament angler, you find yourself constantly charging batteries. I know that after a long day on the water the last thing I want to do is drag out the cords and battery chargers. But I do so because it is best to get those batteries back to a full charge as soon as possible. I would much rather be jumping into the shower, and working my way onto the sofa. Even if you have a charging system that simply plugs in to an AC outlet, there are drawbacks we will discuss later.

The ideal situation would be pulling into the drive with your batteries already charged, right? Well don't laugh, you actually can. The Stay-N-Charge battery system is all that you need to put your battery charging woes to rest. Stay-N-Charge simply uses your tow vehicle's charging system to re-charge your recreational crafts batteries as you are driving home.

Most of the lakes that I fish on are at least a 1-1 ½ hour drive, which is perfect for this system. The Stay-N-Charge system can charge one to three 12-volt batteries, wired in parallel, to a 98% full-charge in 1-2 hours. (Parallel meaning positive post to positive post and negative post to negative post.) The rare case of three totally drained batteries will need at least two hours, but how often do you drain three? With normal use, you will arrive home 98% charged in an hour drive. And better yet, you are topping out your charge as you drive to the lake on your next outing.

This truly sounded too good to be true, so I spoke in depth with Stay-N-Charge founder, Jim Payne, about some concerns I had for this system. It sounded to me like I would be pushing my alternator too hard. He informed me of the 30 amp shortstop circuit breaker that limits the draw to less than 30 amps. Since your tow vehicle doesn't need the alternator that much, and your typical alternator in modern trucks is at least 100 amp or better, there should not be a problem. Also, you are now charging your DC batteries with a DC charger.

Another question I had was about the charge time on a two-day tournament. I worried about getting the same charge in the same time with an engine at idle. Did the RPM's help the alternator charge faster? The answer is no. Your alternator will charge the same if it is parked or rolling down the road. This is good to know as no one wants to start the second day of a tournament with a low charge. I wasn't crazy about idling my truck for an hour and a half, but what is the alternative? There are few campgrounds with AC power, and not everyone wants to buy a generator. Anyway, I have found that my truck idles for a long period just fine.

How about the install? I believe that anyone with basic skills can install the wire loom in about an hour. I actually had mine neatly installed in 30 minutes. The kit had everything I possibly needed and simple instructions as well.

The concept of Stay-N-Charge is rather simple but extremely effective. Now that I have used one for the past two months, I wouldn't want to charge any other way. I definitely have one less thing to worry about when preparing for a tournament or family outing.