Got A New Toy!

[APKape]

The boat I have, has its original 40lb Minn Kota foot controlled trolling motor. The motor worked well, but didn't have enough power for windy days. I've been eyeing the Minn Kota Power Drive with the Auto Pilot and Universal Sonar. So, last week I broke down and picked one up.

Went out yesterday for the first time with the new trolling motor and this is what I think. The foot pedal takes a little bit to get used to. I find myself looking at the trolling motor to see which way it was pointing. My old trolled, I knew which way it was pointing by the position of how high my heal or tow were. I guess it will take some time to get used to. What I do like about the pedal is that it's low profile and smaller that the last troller pedal. I also like that the pedal is very maneuverable and can be placed anywhere on the boat.

The Autopilot is a pretty neat thing. What I was looking for in this feature was to be able to hover over fishing spots in windy conditions. What I found out was that the Autopilot works OK for hovering, but still needs some small pedal adjustments to keep you in your spot. The Autopilot works great for trolling. I pointed the troller in various angels to the wind and it took me to my spot every time. For trolling it's great!

The Universal Sonar, I'm still up in the air on. The first thing I didn't like about it was Minn Kota makes you buy a $30, small 6" fish finder cord that connects your finder to the Universal Sonar. A bit pricey, I though. I'm not sure if the sonar works very well with finders that have dual sonars. I have a Hummingbird 656 that has dual sonars. There is a 20 degree center sonar and two 20 degree sonars on either side of the center sonar (so 60 degree sonar beam total). The center sonar will display fish as a solid black object and the outer sonars will display them at an open outline of the fish. The Universal Sonar was not displaying any fish on the center sonar. And, it displayed a lot more fish that it did the last time I went out. I thought that was a little strange. After getting back home, I found that the Minn Kota sonar cord was not pushed in completely to the sonar. So, I've made a few adjustments to the sonar housing that allows the cord to plug into the sonar fully. I am curious to find out if it works better the next time I go out.

I also purchased the Copilot wireless remote control. I have not put that on just yet. I am putting that thing on today and will try it out later if it stops raining.

If anyone has one of these or knows someone that has one, I'm curious to find out what your options are.

[beagle man]

I have had on for over a year and love it, I dont have any trouble showing fish or structure, only trouble I have was it wouldnt work with my humminbird 777 and humminbird said they couldn't help me, so I sold the 777 to speckhunter and it works fine on his boat, it takes a few fishing trips to get use to the foot control but once you do its nice, I find i use the three switches at the foot of the foot controll, just a tap and it turns quick. and that auto piolit is the nuts for trolling I eaven troll crank bait with it, well not now I got a trolling plate for the big motor, just a good all arround trolling motor,

[Jigging15]

Sounds like one heck of a nice unit. It will be like most other electronics. The more you use it the more comfortable it will get and the more you will like it. Practise. Practise. Practise.

[got crappie]

Sounds nice Alex catch any fish. Dave

[APKape]

Sounds nice Alex catch any fish. Dave

Yesterday a few. I was playing with the trolling motor mostly. I threw them back. Didn't feel like cleaning only three fish. Today just went out and tested the trolling motor's sonar again. Wanted to see if plugging in the sonar wire fully made a different - it didn't.

I was wondering if you made it up this morning like you said you would. Quite a big storm rolled in. Did you get caught in it? If not, how did you do?

On another note, did anyone see that boat tied to the tree up past the old Trimble Lake and the second set of orange buoys? I reported that boat to the water patrol yesterday morning. Started fishing around 7:00pm, pass the boat and yelled ot see if anyone needed help, quit fishing around 1:00pm, yelled again - nothing. I did notice the boat was sitting lower in the water. I'm sure it was full of the rain we had this morning.

[Bigby]

I have a older power drive on my boat with no auto pilot, which came with the boat when I bought it. With mine it seems like it takes awhile for it to spin around to go the other direction, I have hit several trees when the wind was blowing pretty hard because of it being slow, it is also hard to slide it up out of the water to lock it into place. Besides these things I like it but my next one will be a regular foot controlled trolling motor. The new power drives I am sure are a lot better than the used one I have.