wireless trolling motor

I am looking for opinions on motor guide’s new 12 volt, 55 pound thrust wireless trolling motor. I ahve heard they are pretty noisy when you turn. Any comments?

I have one, they are a little noiser than the minnkota but not much, my motorguide turns alot faster than the minnkota and it seems to be alot easier on batteries.

My opinion? buy a minnkota with the auto pilot, co pilot and Universal sonar. Not as if that helps you, but I personally don’t think the auto pilot, colipot combo can be beat. Expensive yes, I’d tell people how much I paid for mine, and they’d tell me I’m crazy, but after 15 minutes of fishing with this combo, they’d agree it’s worth every penny.

I couldn’t agree more with Nick. If you troll harnesses for Walleyes, the AutoPilot CoPilot is the only way to go. Check out the new Terrova, it’s suppose to be the best thing since sliced bread. It combines all the features in one unit.

Ask a little question get a big answer

Well it’s a huge thing to me, since I’m primarily a walleye fisher man. It all comes done to boat control, frankly I’ve been spoiled by having auto pilot. Point in case we bought a new boat a couple months ago, it doesn’t have the autopilot, we took it out to upper whitefish lake, a big lake and we were fishing an area called the steps out in the middle of the lake, well we could find fish sitting on the breaks, but with the wind, waves and boat traffic is was nearly impossible to stay on the spot, wind would gust and blow us off it, I spent more time battling the boat and the wind than fishing, our results suffered, the fish were very neutral, and I feel we could not be accurate on the spot becauase of this trolling motor. I spend lot of time holding structure and such, and with the auto pilot it holds a compass heading which for the most part would allow us to only slip in 2 directions, “forward and backward” (depending on the speed the motor is running and current) over a spot if I faced the bow into the wave because the sutopilot constanly corrects for compass heading it allows me to hold a spot much, much more accurate, especially on a big body of water where you can’t really use shore as a reference. Normal fishing and such is just easier when you can point the trolling motor in one direction and not have to worry about going off course.

Overall in the past couple years I’ve fished with a bunch of other people off IDA and other sites and one common denominater on very good days is boat control a few of these anglers have awesome boat control, they find a spot and they put us on it and hold it, we catch more fish, In spring I still had my old boat with the autopilot we were out on pool 3 we were just hammering fish, and people all around up would pick one up here and there, and it was obvious they were drifting more than us. We were talking with them they were using the same stuff, same presentation, we could more consistently put the boat over the fish and structure.

So in my mind the best boat control you can have the better you are, in any case, I like that I can concentrate on fishing more with the help of an autopilot, and have better results because of it. It’s not that you can’t have great boat control without the autopilot but it will take more of your time and attention, people running tillers, because they have to have their hands on the tiller handle when the boat is running you’ll find have great boat control (Generally speaking anyways ) . The auto pilot does this for you by correcting constantly. I wasn’t until yesterday that I really, really realized how much I miss my autopilot, never in my life have I had to apologize so much for getting in the way of others on the river (pool 4), I had to stay glued to my pedal so I wouldn’t drift into someone, and even then I had a heck of a time. Atleast everyone was really nice to me, even though I crowded them a bunch of time, I think they could see I was having boat control issues.

The co pilot is nice too since I can control the boat from anywhere though I could live without the co-pilot, but I like the option that I can run back and help net a fish or whatever and still have full control of my boat at any instant.

And overall I just think Minn Kota makes a better trolling motor, and their customer service is awesome, I’ve used mine a lot over the years I had some minor issues, in all cases I got super help from customer service, and since I was within warranty they gave me the parts and talked with me on how to properly install them, though I wouldn’t call anything I ever did hard, they are pretty simple things really.

Not to start a debate, this is just how I see it.

Soon I’ll have my new trolling motor with autopilot again

Hopefully spelling and grammar are ok, I gotta run, wife’s ready for dinner

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The co pilot is nice too since I can control the boat from anywhere

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I’m a beginner fisherman and couldn’t be more pleased than not having a foot pedal to deal with. Autopilot and co pilot was easy to use and allowed me to move freely around the boat.

I also forgot to mention if you do go with a minnkota I’d highly suggest to check out http://www.jollyannsales.com/ for great service and prices.

Yeah I know they are a forum sponser, I’m not sure if your familar with them, but forum sponser or not, they are the best choice IMHO for electronics, and don’t be afraid they are in Iowa, shipping is normally super fast, just search them up, you’ll see tons of happy, happy customers.

Just so you know I would never suggest an item or place of business If I didn’t truely believe in them, or just because the happen to sponser my favorite forum. My reccomendations are all earned

Thanks Nick, that clears up a lot for me. I appreciate your posting.

Bob.

I have the Minnkota Auto-pilot and added the Co-pilot to it and LOVE the set up.
Thanks, Bill

have the auto pilot feature on mine, but I never use it. When I first got it, it seemed like it didn’t work very well in the rough stuff unless you were really moving along. Maybe I’ll have to give it another try. I haven’t gotten the co-pilot yet, but I have been considering it. What do they run? about $150?

Yep, about $150. I love the copilot myself. It’s been really helpful in my boat.

I guess the copilot system on the new Terrova is going to have an additional feature. Those will cost a little more, closer to $200. The Terrova with AP and Copilot looks like the “next best thing” to hit the market.