One of the lakes I fish for bass gets EXTREMELY weedy every summer. It’s not a deep lake and it gets pretty choked with vegetation after we get into the hotter part of summer. This makes running a trolling motor through it kind of a nightmare. Seriously, I've had days when I ended up just turning around after being driven nuts by detangling my prop a dozen times in an hour. In the interest of more summer days on the water, I decided to see if anything could be done to make my fishing life easier.
What is it?
Enter the Ninja Grass Blade 2.0 from Precision Sonar Products. This is a machined aluminum “blade” that you attach to your trolling motor that is supposed to help cut away the weeds before they can get wrapped up in the propeller. It is made in the USA and fits “most” trolling motors (they have a special version for Lowrance Ghost models). For around $35, I figured it was worth a try.
Regular https://amzn.to/45j2HC1
Ghost https://amzn.to/3qqwQQK
The basic idea is that it is a little aluminum knife that will cut through any weeds that get twisted up in your prop. Back in the day, people used to attach box-cutter blades to their motor housings in the hopes that it would do something similar. That always seemed like a really short term plan to me, due to how quickly thin steel rusts. Plus, I didn't love the idea of dropping half rusted blades in the lake once they worked themselves loose. But an aluminum setup like the Ninja Grass Blade should have no such issues. Particularly if the waterproof 3M mounting tape works as well as it is claimed.
It works for both bow and stern mount trolling motors. For this article, I installed it on a Minn Kota Powerdrive trolling motor.
Installation
Installation was fairly easy. It’s mostly just one of those “Take your time. Measure twice, cut once” sort of deals. There are a number of YouTube videos that will walk you through it. But the short version of the instructions are:
| First, “dry fit” the blade on the trolling motor housing so that it comes as close as possible to the prop without hitting anything that rotates. Remember to place the 3M tape (WITHOUT peeling and exposing adhesive) under the blade to get a proper placement preview. | |
| Once you’ve figured out where you want the blade to go, make a few placement marks with a pen or some tape and lightly sand the paint on the trolling motor where you are going to attach the blade. | |
| Clean both the sanded area and the underside of the blade with the alcohol wipe, carefully stick one side of the waterproof 3M tape onto the blade, and then peel the second side and stick the blade to the motor housing. | |
| Give the blade/tape combo some pressure to ensure that it is stuck down. Then wait at least 12 hours for proper adhesion before using in the water. |
Installation was fairly easy and thus far, it’s stayed on there just fine. I suppose it would be possible for an unlucky log/rock strike to tear the blade off. But I suspect that hard of a hit would cause larger problems for your motor. That said, I’ve seen some suggestions about using two-part epoxy or JB weld to attach the blade instead of the 3M tape. There are some complaints on the internet that the 3M tape will eventually dry out and fail. But it’s hard to tell if this is a design issue, or a human error being lazy with the prep work. There are many other comments where people have had them on for years with no trouble. So who knows? If you really wanted to be sure, you could use a stainless steel hose clamp in addition to the tape.
Results
I ran this thing through the end of last summer until vegetation started to die off. So what is the verdict?
Does it work? Yes. Will it work for your specific lakes? Maybe. It really depends on a few things.
- What kind of weeds do you have?
The Ninja Grass Blade, perhaps unsurprisingly, seems to handle grass beds with ease. Bigger tougher weeds like hydrilla still cleaned off fairly well. The worst seemed to be thin stringy weeds. For whatever reason, probably how they wrap around the prop, the blade struggled with those.
- How thick are the weeds?
This isn’t a magic wand, if you drive into enough thick stuff, the blade will get overwhelmed regardless of weed type and you’ll be stuck cleaning your prop.
- How fast are you going?
Higher prop speeds seem to help the blade cut better. If you have to get through a heavy patch of weeds, try to give it some throttle.
| It handled hydrilla and grass pretty well. | |
| However, thin stringy grass remained a challenge. But I'm not sure that any trolling motor or blade could do much better with this stuff. |
Overall, I am pretty pleased with the investment. The Ninja Grass Blade 2.0 does more or less what it says on the box. There’s no reason not to add one of these to your trolling motor. Heck, some folks even add two on opposite sides. The time you save in not untangling weeds as often should well offset the purchase price. No, it won’t completely keep vegetation from fouling your prop (especially if your lake has thin stringy weeds like mine does). But it will significantly reduce the amount of time you spend pulling your motor out of the water and cleaning vegetation off.
Click HERE to buy the Ninja Grass Blade 2.0 from Amazon. Or you can go to the Precision Sonar website.
