New MotorGuide Xi5

[jimmyfreeland]

I just ordered me a Xi 5 pinpoint 55lb so I guess I'll be a guinea pig on this one. Anchor mode is a big thing I'm wanting this to do, supposedly it's suppose to keep you within a few feet but we'll see... and since I pilot reviews are bad on anchor so I went with motorguide. I'll be posting to let you all know how well it works.

[Kman]

please do

[boat49]

I'll be looking for the posts too. I have been researching the I pilot and havent been convinced enough to go ahead and get one. This is the first Ive heard of the Xi 5. I'm going to do some research while waiting for the posts!

[jimmyfreeland]

I haven't got it installed yet but after going through the instruction manual it does have dual gps antenna's. One in the top of the motor and one in the base, the gps antennas look identical in the pictures in the manual.... so this should give it quite a bit more accuracy over the I pilot which only uses one I would think. Hopefully I'll get it this week and can try it out this coming weekend.

[jimmyfreeland]

I got the new trolling motor out and tested it pretty good today. We fished with it in anchor mode most of the day. And spider rigged a bit. The wind was blowing 10-15 and only I'd say twice when very hard gusts came up did the boat move more than a few feet out of position. One really big gust came and blew the boat about a boats length back, but the motor didn't over react. It slowly pulled us back into position. It never over shot the position. It kept the boat straight into the wind better than a regular anchor I thought, the back of the boat wasn't whipping around. I threw out a buoy and it did just like the you tube video of the guy next to the buoy. When searching for crappie I sat in my drivers seat watching the 998 side image while steering the boat with the remote control without any problems. Once you push the heading lock button and then set the speed, you can still steer the motor with the remote without it kicking anything out. It sets a new heading lock each time you move the motor without you having to reset anything. I spider rigged for a short bit with it. The speed I set was .6 mph and on the Lowrance graph and it stayed at .6. Only a few times did it even go down to .5, But the wind had settled some by then. But as I was trolling around looking at the side image it seemed that the speed was very regular. It kept the speed very well, and also seemed that it would go as slow as anyone would want. I was trolling at .1 and .2 and it seemed to be holding that speed easily. I never got the foot pedal out and I don't see any real practical use of it yet for me crappie fishing. I just used the hand held remote. Both me and my fishing partner were really impressed with the anchor lock. He was so impressed with it that he said he's going to have to get him one now.... After reading so much about the I-pilot, I was worried it wouldn't work very well either, but it did. The 5 foot incremental movements it makes was also very handy and I used it all day. I threw out a buoy and moved around it with the 5 foot increments on anchor mode most of the day. Just using the buoy as something to go by where some structure was holding some crappie. This is just the first time out but so far so good. I had 2 27size marine batteries hooked in parallel for the 55 lb. 12 volt motor. At the end of the day the battery level indicator was still showing almost completely charged and we fished with it in anchor mode in 10-15 mph winds basically all day. It didn't seem like the motor had to work too hard to keep us in position. I put the motor on high and headed into the waves and top speed into the wind and waves was about 2 mph, so it seems plenty of motor for my 17.5 foot aluminum bass boat. It was really about as windy as I care to fish in today and it did very very well. We managed to catch 20 crappie. Sun runs the fish deep in this clear lake and makes them hard to catch on sunny days. But it sure was nice fishing and not having to worry about trying to run a trolling motor too. And not having to worry about tossing the anchor and pulling it in...The motor really did all the work. To me I can already tell that it's going to be like my side imaging is..... I don't know how I ever managed to fish without it... But keep in mind this was the first trip, so I'll update next time out which will likely be next weekend. But I thought I'd be fighting the motor all day trying to figure it out, but no it was very easy to use. And anchor mode really worked very well even in winds that were making some small whitecaps. I did read about it a lot so I already knew all the functions and how to use them before I got there. We fished for 9 hrs today and didn't find any faults with it yet. It is advertised as keeping the boat within a few feet on anchor mode, and it does. Almost all of the time the front of the boat actually stayed in a 5 foot circle. most of the time it seemed to be less. And this was in pretty windy conditions. So far I'm very pleased.

[Shady]

I really appreciate your detailed report. I've thought about one of these motors and you've answered most of my questions. I would like to know how responsive the foot control is. There are times when fishing standing timber that both hands may needed to move limbs and hold a pole. Agin thanks for the update.

[Handicrappie]

Good review. Glad the spot lock works well for ya. Thats definitely something that Minn Kota needs to upgrade on their motors.

[jimmyfreeland]

The only time I used the foot pedal was during installation. It's spring loaded and doesn't push very far up or down, but the motor head turns pretty quickly if this is what you mean. I'll get it out next time I go and try it. There didn't seem to be any lag time between the time the buttons are pressed or the pedal and the motor turning just kind of like a remote on a tv, as soon as you push a button something happens.

[C_McKinney]

Now it's a tough choice between the new motor guide and the Minn kota.

[bobothewizard]

Thank you very much for the detailed review. It was exactly what I was looking for.

So far, they seem worth it. Maybe I will be switching over from the regular motorguide to one of these. Wonder how it works with the navigation hooked up to a lowrance gen 2 unit?