The Minn Kota Terrova with iPilot
I recently bought a Minn Kota Terrova with the iPilot. I had grown tired of fighting the wind on every trip to the lake. I was weary of coming off the water with a sore back from standing in an awkward position all day with one foot up on the trolling motor trying to keep boat positioned and keep my balance against wind and wake. I was painfully aware that I was wasting a lot of my limited fishing time doing manual chores associated with working the trolling motor.
It was on a windy day toward the end of last season that the final straw was broken. The wind was perhaps 20MPH out of the north and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t keep my boat in place. On it’s highest setting I was only barely able to HOLD my position in the wind...making any headway was out of the question and keeping the boat off the rocks was a full time occupation. At one point I caught a bass next to a rock and as I battled the fish the wind blew me so far off the spot that I had no idea where I had caught him. I wanted to go back to the spot and work that school of fish but I had no clue where to start. Countless frustrating days had amassed and come to a point on that one afternoon...I vowed to find a solution to this problem.
Enter Minn Kota.
I heard about the “spot lock” feature of the iPilot and I knew immediately that it was the feature I needed. I didn’t really care about anything else the iPilot offered. All I wanted was to get my hands on the spot lock feature so I could tell the wind where to go.
The short story from there is that I did indeed buy an iPilot. I got a Terrova with the iPilot and 80 lbs of thrust. I put it on the boat and took it to the lake for a week.
I just got back and here are my thoughts.
“Spot lock” - A God send. Whoever created this feature needs a raise, a corner office, a big annual bonus tied to how many units are sold, and a dedicated parking spot right up front. I don’t EVER want to own a trolling motor without this feature. I used to be tied to the front deck with one foot flat on the deck and the other awkwardly placed on the big pedal to help control the direction and position of the boat. That’s easy on a calm day with flat water...but there aren’t many of those. Normally the boat is bobbing and rocking and the wind is pushing me a direction I don’t want to go and many times I can hardly concentrate on fishing at all. By the end of the day I’ve lost a lot of fishing time and my back is sore from standing in that weird position all day.
Spot lock solves all of those problems. If I pull up on a point, or an offshore hump, or rockpile I want to fish it. I didn’t come all this way to play with a trolling motor most of the day and fish with whatever time I have left over. I didn’t come to the lake to get an exercise in boat control...I came to fish. Now I just pull up on the spot and I hit a button. When I hit the button my iPilot looks to the heavens and communicates with a sattelite to get a fix on my position. The sattelite and the trolling motor then work together to keep me on that spot...they are working...and I am fishing...it is how things are supposed to be in 2012. 100% of my time is now freed up to FISH! It is revolutionary. On windy days I bet I lost 30% of my fishing time to fooling with the trolling motor. That is an incredibly frustrating thing. I don’t get many hours per week to fish. What few I do get I don’t want to spend pushing a pedal and a button with my foot trying to keep my boat in a certain spot while I balance on windy chop and boat wakes trying not to fall overboard. I want to fish.
Spot lock allows me to fish, pure and simple. Once I hit it I walk away. I’m free to use both hands to fish, both feet to balance, and all of my concentration can be applied to working the area I chose to fish.
If your trolling motor doesn’t do this then it is failing you. I think all manufacturers will be forced to offer a similar solution...it’s too revolutionary to not keep up with. Just like the Apple smart phones revolutionized their industry...so too will the iPilot revolutionize the trolling motor industry.
The next great thing
The next feature I used and fell in love with is the Auto Pilot feature. If I pointed my old trolling motor in a direction, turned it on, and took my foot off the pedal the slightest movement would cause me to immediately veer off course...it was impossible to go in a straight line.
Auto Pilot also uses GPS to control the boat. In this case I hit the Auto Pilot button and it lays down a series of way points across the water...then it follows them. I’m free to do other things. If I need to re-tie a line I can walk to the back of the boat and rig it up. While I’m back there I might want to make a slight course correction...I just tap the directional button on the remote and the computer recomputes, lays out a new course and follows it. Going too slow? Hit the speed button to speed it up or slow it down.
Many times I had the kids up front trolling while I sat at the console and monitored my position on the plotter. I could use the remote to steer us to the most productive areas from the comfort of my captains chair.
These are remarkable features that allow you to use your entire boat. Just yesterday I was using the Auto Pilot to slowly troll along a rock bluff at a speed that allowed me to work the area efficiently. I didn’t have to think about anything other than my presentation. I was slow rolling a spinner bait and I caught a 7.5 lb largemouth...the biggest I’ve ever caught. If I’d been fooling with my old trolling motor all morning I doubt I’d have been able to concentrate enough, or work my bait slowly enough to entice that fish to hit.
These features allow you to get more fishing time into every trip...and that time will be of a higher quality because you’ll be focusing 100% on the fishing...not splitting your time between boat control and fishing.
There are other features available in this unit but I’ve not used them at length. You can record a track and then replay it...which is helpful if you want to fish a cove or a contour line, or a brush line.
There is also a high speed bypass function that it really slick. Say you get to the back of a cove and you want to quickly jump over to the other side of it and fish there. Normally I might have to crank the big motor up an idle over there rather than waste time putting along. Now I just hit the “rabbit” button and the trolling motor jumps to max power and pulls like a freight train to get me over there. Or if you suddenly find yourself a little to close to an obstacle, you hit the “rabbit” and it move the boat in a hurry in the direction you choose. It’s really a neat feature.
Fishing with the kids
When I take the kids fishing it was always crowded on the front deck as I tried to work the trolling motor pedal while one of them was casting. Now I sit amidships with a kid at each end and I control the whole show from the remote around my neck.
If one of them needs me for something I’m right there next to them...I don’t have to push past one to get to the other. This greatly reduces the frustration level on board.
Catfishing
We frequently set out juglines in the summer time. I bait the hooks at the back end of the boat while my son would work the trolling motor up from to keep us moving in the right direction. This never worked well as that big foot pedal isn’t designed for a kid. Invariably it would lead to frustration. Now I hand him the remote and it’s easy as pie for him. He can control the whole boat with the push of a button and we both have a great time.
Sum it up
Those are the immediate thoughts on the iPilot. It is a remarkably well thought out, well engineered, and well manufactured piece of gear. I never want to own a trolling motor that doesn’t have these features. It would be one giant step backward for mankind. It’s allowed me to become a better fisherman by freeing up my time and my mind, and it has drastically reduced my frustration level on windy days and times when I’ve had kids on both ends of the boat.
I told my wife that they could easily charge twice as much for this piece of gear...I’d pay it and be happy doing so.
Ultimately all manufacturers will have to offer these options or they will become obsolete. This is the way of the future. Trolling motor manufacturers need to keep up or die...and the iPilot is setting the pace right now.
