Monte, don't know how long the battery leads are that you'll end up running, but I'll offer this bit of advise:
Don't let the power lead run any significant distance without a fuseable link or a circuit breaker. In fact, one of the cooler things I discovered recently was the power center battery box that Minn Kota offers. It's a 27 series box, so I decided against, plus the fact that it's $70 retail. If you look around on the net, you'll see enough pictures of it that you can duplicate the same thing for 1/4 the price and that includes a push button circuit breaker for protection. I did the same thing on a 24 series box. Easy to drill a couple of holes for 1/4-20 screws for external posts. Get a Sea Dog 30A push button breaker and mount it under the lid with the reset button protruding for outside access.
Let me tell you why I strongly advocate for this. I added a second battery to my boat and the only logical location it would fit is behind a panel in the rear corner port side that was holding flotation foam. It's tied to the engine and the main battery through a 3 way Perko I installed. To remove this back panel, you have to pull up the rear most floor panel. Battery has been in there in a battery box for a year, so figured it was time to pull it out and check the water. No biggie, right? It has a couple of less than 3' leads that go to a fuseblock and everything is powered through that. Well, my brother in law is putting the panel back in with the 2 leads hooked up to the battery and the hot lead taped up pretty good. Remember, can't access it after the panel is installed. So when he's pushing the panel back in place(which is tightly fitted) it somehow pinched the hot and gnd lead on a battery that we had just fully charged. Let me tell ya, cable insulation and wire loom can make an incredible amount of smoke and fire in a matter of a couple of seconds.
If he hadn't moved quickly to yank the panel away and use a screwdriver to separate the leads, could have been messy. This is the rear corner of the boat with a fuel filler line and vent tubes in it. Could have been a disaster and all that from a pretty short run of battery cable.
So don't screw around. Protect anything over a few inches with some type of breakable link(fuseable or breaker). I was never totally comfortable when I first put that in there, but I guarantee you it didn't go back together without a complete re-engineering after that incident. I cut the panel in half and used a West Marine latch for a clean install and better access to the battery. Reworked the battery box itself to the same config as the Minn Kota, so no unprotected hot lead even gets outside of the battery box. Two other runs of wire I put in the boat, including one I ran to a fuse block under the dash also got resettable circuit breakers mounted immediately next to their source battery. There's also a breaker just after the Perko in the run that goes between the batteries. You can get some pretty good ones(car stereo style) for cheap on Ebay. Less than $10 for a 40A breaker. Search for a seller by the name of uneeksupply. I used the same style to isloate my 6V trolling motor batteries upfront when I installed that a couple of years ago(which was done correctly the first time!). A ton cheaper than those $60 breakers they sell.
Do it right and sleep better at night. An electrical fire in the driveway is bad enough. Have that happen on the water and you could be going for a swim while you watch your boat and gear turn into a Roman Candle.
EDIT: Here's a picture on Amazon that shows the underside of the Minn Kota power center box lid so you can see how it's wired:
http://tinyurl.com/y92mnvt
I didn't need the meter or the additional power outlet circuit, so mine is wired simpler than that. West Marine can help you with some of the small parts like insulating rubber covers for the posts on the outside of the box.
