Minn Kota I-Pilot

[fishdawg]

I just upgraded & installed one on my bow. Really looking forward to using all its features for various applications.

I am wondering if anyone here has used one yet for controlled drifting in rivers? I plan to use it on the Niagara. Was wondering what functions would work best for dialing in a "hands free" controlled drift best.

Ill definetly report back on here as I progress and learn this new unit.

[lineman49]

My buddy loves his, its great for anchoring over perch schools. I know its not good at the mouth of the upper river, not enough power. It works well when going back & forth on the same trolling line. He uses a wireless hand remote with his.

[Don Supon]

Point the bow upstream at the beginning of your controlled drift. Turn on the constant speed setting and adjust the speed against the current until you get the slow downstream travel you desire. Auto-pilot will keep you on track and it's easy to change that by adjusting the trolling motor direction. More responsive if the main motor is tilted up out of the water.

[Shellback]

Point the bow upstream at the beginning of your controlled drift. Turn on the constant speed setting and adjust the speed against the current until you get the slow downstream travel you desire. Auto-pilot will keep you on track and it's easy to change that by adjusting the trolling motor direction. More responsive if the main motor is tilted up out of the water.

What he said, but when you set the auto pilot, hold the button down till the compass A/P comes on. The first setting is GPS heading and it tends to make more corrections than needed. Your manual will explain the 2 A/P setting and how to best use them.

[fishdawg]

thanks everyone, much appreciated!

now will the track record function work & repeat itself while drifting stern first downstream with bow into the current? I wasnt sure if the GPS would be able to recognize this or not?

[tcon]

With the track record feature you can play back from the begining or the end of the track. What I have found is that if you have a separate gps unit on the boat when you record a track mark the start of the track as a waypoint on your gps and store it as " start track A" and when you get to the end where you want to stop recording store it as "end track A" on your gps. Your motor is probably going to have a hard time playing back the track if you are going down stream with the bow going with the current unless your going at a pretty good clip I found this out fishing with a strong south wind, the motor always wants to keep the bow on track so if the wind is pushing your stern around the bow will stay on track but essentially the boat will be traveling down the lake sideways. Into the wind the thing is flawless! Especially if you are using the anchor feature. I tried it out when I wanted to clean some stuff up on the boat and put away some gear, had a steady 15 mile an hour south wind pointed the bow into the wind and hit the anchor feature and that boat didn't move for 20 minutes while I was cleaning things up. These motors are very impressive extremely happy with my purchase.

Tom

[fishdawg]

thanks Tom

the "anchor lock" worked great while perch fishing on Lake Erie this weekend!