New MotorGuide Xi5

[wicklundrh]

My experience with the motor guide in general is that every time you hit a button on your remote control (speed up or down, turn the motor left or right) it beeps. It wouldn't be a big issue if you are only hitting it every so often, but when you are fishing the river and you are required to hit the button every few seconds to make adjustments, it gets annoying..... really really annoying. Annoying enough to where I will no longer fish in my buddies boat and hate to be around anyone else that has one. Maybe it is just me, I don't know, but I cannot stand it. Like having your fish finder on alert mode and then going over a pod of fish. I am not sure if you can disable the audible beep. if you can, nice unit, if you can't, I hope you don't have to adjust much.

If you own one and never noticed or payed attention to it, you will now. This is the only reason I went with a terrova on my new boat even though I use lowrance electronics and love the Motorguide features associated.

[okhawg]

My Xi5 does not beep when turning or when speed adjustmental are made. Just when a function is chosen, or motor off/on.

[IkenI]

geowits....mine's fairly new - never had that problem.

wicklundrh....mine doesn't beep at all. Wait a minute - I couldn't hear it if it did.
Also, I usually fish by myself so couldn't care less. The anchor function is the reason I would not go back to MinnKota (although I think they are fine motors.)

[geowits]

I have found this capability is useful when structure fishing.

[BlueNitro]

I had a I-Pilot and was disappointed the first time I marked a pile with a buoy, eased up to it with the I-Pilot and hit spot-lock (anchor mode) and then would be anywhere from 5' past (upwind) the marker to 30-40' downwind. I tried it hundred of times since that first disappointment with very similar results. I even bought another cable steer for just crappie fishing because the I-Pilot didn't cut the mustard in my opinion.

So last week I put a MotorGuide Xi5 on my 18' bassboat (80lb thrust/54" shaft with PinPoint GPS). Got a chance on Friday morning to give it a test run on Ray Hubbard with heavy wind and waves as well as calm protected waters. Wow!!! MotorGuide got this as close to perfect as I could want. First a BP in calm water and after an initial adjustment (more on this later) the unit kept us within a foot the whole time. Then we moved over to a piece of timber that wasn't protected to give it more of a challenge. You can see from the video that it did it's job and impressed me beyond my expectations. (You may have to scroll down on Photobucket to see the video and sorry for the sideways video. If anyone knows how to load a direct link to post here, please do so.)

[img]http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j327/rdbassing/th_20150703_073214_zpsyyamiwlp.mp4[/img]

Then we fished another piece of timber that had multiple branches above the water that was 20' from where the video was taken. I started on the left side of it farthest upwind and let my buddy fish it while I was on the phone. No bites so one button pushed and we moved 5' back to cover some more of the timber. Nothing so another button push and back 5' more. Then we moved over 10' to the right (two button pushes) and fished and then worked up the right side with a push of the button. In all this I would estimate that we were never more than a foot away from where we wanted to be!!!!

And the motor and steering mechanism is extremely quiet!!! My buddy made comment to how quiet it was compared to his TM and I was pleased I didn't hear the constant 'Whirrrr' from my old I-Pilot. The response time for steering is also much faster than my old I-Pilot. And from what I could tell, the digital motor uses a lot less battery than my old unit. After running it for about 5 hours, I plugged the on-board charger in and by that evening it had the batteries fully charged. My I-Pilot would run the batteries down to a point that the charger would take a day and a half to fully charge them both up with the same approximate running time.

Almost perfect? Here are some things I noted from this trip;

A couple of times it would seem that we were a few feet off where I initially hit Anchor Mode. No problem though, just hit the forward or side button once after the boat settled and we would be right where we wanted.

I am used to the remote from my I-Pilot so I constantly would hit the wrong buttons if I didn't look at the remote. I know this will get better once I get more accustomed to the new remote. I did feel lost without the display on the remote and hope I can get used to it not being there. Just be real careful around the bridge columns until you get used to the remote.

Some say it isn't as fast pulling your boat compared to the MK, all I can say is my unit seemed like it was as fast in top end speed as my old one. No GPS speeds to compare these though.

So my opinion is that this unit will greatly add to being able to effectively fish brush piles without messing with a trolling motor. I have no skins in the game other than it was my hard earned money I spent and would recommend the Xi5 to anyone interested in getting one.

[BlueNitro]

Another update on the Xi5. Saturday I was on Lake Lewisville fishing the 720/Little Elm bridge with a stiff wind and strong waves trying to blow us all around. After about 20 minutes of playing the game trying to keep us close my friend asked if the anchor mode would work. I told him "No way" because of all the concrete over our head and I had tried before with the I-Pilot with no success. He said try with the Xi5, "what do you have to lose?". So I hit the button and was amazed when the TM kept us right in place. We were fishing between the second and third column on the west side but was well under the bridge (total of 6 columns). Never thought it would have worked but it did.

Now for the warning. After ten minutes or so, it finally lost the signal and the unit went crazy trying the find the signal again. Took some scrambling to get the boat back under control (had to turn off the anchor mode) before hitting a column. Tried on some other columns including on the Toll bridge and sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't. Just depended on if it could find a satellite I guess. Point is it would never work with the old I-Pilot even if I was on the last column.

Still very impressed with the unit but I need to get the Gateway so I am not having to search for the BP's. If it can put you on the top of a BP then there would be no need for buoy markers and searching with the TM. Also, the no screen on the remote is still a PITA. Biggest issue is not having a reference point with the speed when fishing bridges. Any MG reps out there that would like to talk so I could convince you that this is the only thing missing?

[BlueNitro]

I posted the above write ups that I did on another forum to share with all of you. I got no 'skins' in either company, just my thoughts on the unit I bought. Hope this helps someone who is looking into getting one.

[geowits]

While fishing with my nephew (who has an iPilot), I locked the Xi5 onto a BP. After fishing for awhile, my partner asked where the BP was to which I replied "right under the TM". Seems he (with the iPilot) was used to anchoring near the BP and refining the location with a marker bouy. He constantly complains about the "swing" the iPilot has when trying to stay on an anchor point. Love the Xi5 - great for crappie fishing structure, (See previous posts).

[Cane Pole]

What do you have to do to use it properly?

Pee and retie anchor.