Matt the gel celled batteries will last longer with vibration and the pounding that they could take while running. The thing you need to look at when buying a battery is the reserve time. It will be on the tag where the model or group size is. It will be in minutes. Most of the larger size batteries have 140 minutes or so "reserve time". This is the rating running the battery under a decent load such as a trolling motor.

I have had decent success with my Optima (until it was stolen with the rest of my boat stuff a while back) and it seemed to hang in there as well as the larger batteries if not better. Now I have replaced them with Auto Zone brand and they have been good to me. A cheap alternative for a decent battery.