Foor control or Hand

[keith29]

I see all kinds of different boats with foot controlled trolling motors and hand controlled ones. I have never used a hand control and was wondering if there are any advantages. Also to see which one everybody chooses? Reason is I have bought a smaller boat and not for sure which one I want to put on it yet. Maybe this will help. Thanks for any post.

[satdoc1]

Small boat I recomend a hand control. I hav a 17.5 Tracker and have upgraded to a Terrova with Ipilot which takes all the work out of it.

[Bombfixer]

I have a hand controlled one on my 24 foot Deck Boat. Not a lot of room on the front deck for a foot controller. Space is taken up by Fish Finder, anchor-mate, fishing rod holders, etc. Hand control is best in my situation. 80ft lbs of torgue on a 24Volt system. Works great. Not a lot of constant adjustment either. Wish I could afford the i-pilot ones, but outta my reach right now. Probably save and wait until they come up with one that can take gps input from FF and run a course for me. Figure about 3-5 yrs for that to appear.

[talltimber]

I had a tiller on my old boat. Worked great, much better for that particular setup than a hand control. That's another reason why I went with the ipilot, no feet. I never ran a foot controlled tm much, and when I did, I wasn't very good at it.

[jiggshooter]

just get you a hand controlled tansom mount should do good

[TORTIS]

I have a foot control and I am thinking of converting it to hand control. I have a 14' jon boat with front casting deck and it is crowded up there.

The foot control seems to be to close to the seat, but it is as far forward as it can go.

[Grainraiser]

I do most of fishing sitting down so a hand control works much better for me. Had a foot control and I could never master it. Foot controls are better if you mostly stand while fishing. I'm I would have gotten better with the foot controls if I would have gotten use to it. For me a hand control with a bigfoot gives me the best of both worlds.

[steve48]

Keith,
I have the Motorguide variable 55 hand control on front of a Grizzly and love it, but front seat is close ro Bow, so I can touch it up once in a while. Also handle extends out some . On Tracker 175 I have to use foot control,Seat is too far away from bow, and if I'm trolling and catch fish you can bet I'm going to get crooked in water. Some of us can't walk and chew bubble gum though.

[skeetbum]

On most of my boats til now, I used a tiller TM with the head turned around and an impulse switch to activate it. I could push the motor with the eye of a rod and step on the button and away we go. Having a constant on option makes trolling with a hand control pretty easy too. Looking forward to the UPS man bringing my auto pilot before my vacation week after next.

[rocket rich]

tiller that is reversed from transom to bow like the edge made my own front of boat is crowded