Thread: if you could do it over, would you buy it again?

Do some research on the I-Pilot Link. I got my I-Pilot last April and think it's the greatest thing. But now I wish I would of waited for the I-Pilot Link to come out next month. Just my

One more thing, definitely wait on the I pilot link if you run HB fish finders!

Genec has a valid point. I do the same type of brush pile and dock shooting as he does. The "spot lock" feature lets me drift off about 18' before correcting which is a pain in the neck. In some cases I will be heading in the opposite direction & sometimes my boat will bang against the dock when it corrects.

I seldom use spot lock as I have found that I can point my boat into the wind, hit the AP(GPS) and adjust my speed to stay there. Works a lot better, for me, than the spot lock feature.

I have fished with Gene and he has mastered the art of staying over a brush pile with very little effort using his foot control.

Spot Lock is a good feature if you have to pee or tie a jig on.

My fishing is so much more productive, efficient and enjoyable now. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat. I spend more time fishing than fishting the cable steer which I never realized how much fishing time I was eating up and wasting trying to control the boat.

Using a cable steer TM takes practice. I don't have an i pilot and since I do not troll or spider rig I feel the cable steer better suits my style of fishing. I have a friend that has an older unit and unless they have made a lot of changes, to me they are slow and do not perform well in tight situations. I can see they would work for spider rigging or trolling, but for dock shooting. vertical gigging, casting or fishing in tight areas where moving quickly is required, I'll take my cable steer unit. You have to use what best suits your style of fishing.

Again it is what style fishing you do,but if you jig your boat will move 15 to 18 feet in each direction ,We check it on land hook up to truck and for jigging with one pole you are going to stay hung up most of the time,on cable one should master using it with either foot, now if you are going to use minnows then it would be ok over brush because you would fish a little higher than brush and moving around the brush would be good with many rods out,but for my style moving 20 to 40 feet in brush would drive me crazy ,tried it with a frirnd and had to go back to camp and get mine to keep from going insane,LOLwith no joke I was very uncomforable, so get in boat and fish your style a few minutes wiyh him before buying one,whats great for one is bad for another

I have my second PD trolling motor, neither is an I pilot. I just felt the need to offer some input on the versatility of the base unit. I now have a co-pilot and auto pilot Riptide, which is a good part of the way along to an I-Pilot. I shoot docks, fish emergent timber, troll jigs and cranks, slow troll shorelines while casting points of interest......You name it. I had cable steer motors and didn't care for the hands on , full time operation of them. True, in tight, fast conditions a cable steer can get to business in a hurry. I learned to pay attention to the situation at hand and have no trouble fishing everything that I could with a cable motor, and get the benefit of the hands off for much more. The auto pilot makes trolling alone enjoyable, impossible with any cable motor I have been around. this motor was no giveaway and I will upgrade it to ipilot one day. If I had the cash at the time, the full boat Terrova would be in it's place. In my opinion, there's nothing above this for ALL that we do. There is a learning curve, but I believe you're up to the task.

I bought mine in Jan. of this year.I use mine for panfishing and bass fishing.I like the fact that i'm no longer standing like Capt.Morgan all the time , on my last boat I had the recessed foot pedal well.It still was uncomfortable, now my front deck is completly open.I have zero foot pedal (remote only with my model).I too bought the built in transducer,but I feel I should buy an extra remote just in case of failure on water. I'm 100 percent sure I would buy again! Like the others I'm not sure how I fished for 40yrs without one.There is a definite learning curve, but once you retrain yourself it becomes second nature to reach for the remote instead of using your feet....One safety thought: though it may never happen to you, It's happened to me if you fall out in cold weather and can't climb back in because of heavy wet clothes or whatever, your remote is with you and waterproof and floats to pull you to shore....maybe.In my case my fishing buddy pulled me to the bank. What if your alone? Just a thought.......tinsmith