Electric bow mounted trolling motors...

[tcon]

I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with the "Minn Kota® 55 PowerDrive™ V2 AutoPilot™ Bow-Mount Trolling Motor" or the new ipilot gps controls pro's...con's...likes....dis likes? Thanks in advance for your input.

Tom

[tcon]

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[turf]

My buddy just got the Ipilot, used it a couple of times on his 17' lund. On lake ontario, it will troll at 2mph but thats it, and it killed the batteries so an onboard recharger is necessary. When the batteries started to run out of juice, the motor just started spinning around.....what a mess we had. That is all he has tried with it so far, so the verdict is still out on it.

[Miss em]

I have the exact same motor on my 17 foot Mirrocraft and love it. Most of my use with it is drifting for walleyes at .8 to 1.2 mph. Set the auto pilot and the cruise and just fish. Anchor feature works well. Haven't used the record track feature. I get a ton of battery life at the speeds I use it at. Interstate battery.

[tcon]

Thanks fellas, anyone else have any info...?

Tom

[K Gonefishin]

If you are going to use Ipilot in conjunction with a kicker they cannot be beat, the auto pilot works great and you can steer from anywhere in the boat with the remote, you can set cruise control and at a glance look down and see your speed and adjust from there. I use my kicker for main thrust and Terrova for dialing in speed to the tenth and for AP and cruise control.

For walleye fishing slow spinner fishing or slow trolling cranks I don't even use my kicker I have a 21 ft glass tourney style ranger walleye boat, I have 3 Diehard group 31 platniums 36volt so I can go all day and have plenty of power. using my kicker I have fished 4 days without a charge because I'm essentially just using it for steer.

If you use these motors properly they are the ulimate in boat control.

[tcon]

K Gone,

Thanks for the info thats exactly what I was thinking whats to say you can't idle the kicker in gear and set the bow mount on auto pilot, the bow mount won't be pulling the weight of the boat just doing the steering essentially.

Tom

[tcon]

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Minn-Kot ... l+Products <-----This is the one I ended up going with. Thanks for all the info fellas.

Tom

[Big Al's]

Hi,

I owned that motor in a 70#, 24v version. It worked good. I had one issue with the co-pilot and had the compas board replaced. It seemed to get lost on co-pilot.

I replaced it with a Terrova 80 # , 24v with I-pilot. It's a MUCH heavier duty unit. Everything is bigger. I like the deployment lever better.

I use it on a 19 6 Starcraft Fishmaster. I can pull my boat 3.2 mph.

Al