I feel a little dumb for this.

Had our boat for 3 weeks or so now, it had a 80lb minn kota riptide with the co-pilot remote. Just yesterday while trolling along a bank making some casts in heavy wind, I looked down and saw the motor turning on its own. Its had some quirks with the remote control, sometimes it turns large amounts with a quick button push, but this was new.

Then I noticed the red autopilot light was on. I skimmed over the manual when we got the boat, and guess I just assumed the auto pilot didnt work- as I believe it said it was for equipped models or such. We tried it a bit more on our way to the ramp, it was far too busy to really test it out by fishing, but it seemed to hold its course, it would drift/blow 10 degrees or so off course and the motor would turn enough to bring it back on course more or less it appeared.

All this time we've been trolling along, pulling cranks, and manually correcting our course with the remote. It still worked great, but on windy days it was easy to get pretty far out of whack if we weren't paying attention. If this works like I think it will, things will be SOO much better! This is essentially the reason I was wanting the I-pilot upgrade, so it would hold a course on its own.


Anyone else have and use auto pilot? Is the point to hold the given heading you steer it at?