Kicker for me in my moderately deep v. I will eventually get a trolling motor to steer with (and lock the kicker in straight ahead position) and maybe use electric only on calmer days.
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Kicker for me in my moderately deep v. I will eventually get a trolling motor to steer with (and lock the kicker in straight ahead position) and maybe use electric only on calmer days.
Having never used a kicker myself, I didn't know you could lock it into a straight ahead position. With that and the trolling motor up front to steer, man, I would think the boat would be rock solid in the wind.
Thank you guys, so much!!!! Great info.
If it were me setting up a boat that I would keep a long time I would go with top notch electronics. The new MK Terrova link and the Humminbird Side image Depthfinder work in conjunction with each other and will follow a contour line. The Auto pilot works on a compass heading and is good but affected by wind. The Terrova with regular i-Pilot follows a GPS system and will navigate to given waypoints on a path, then with the touch of a button, turn around and go back through them. These aren't cheap but depending on what you want or need they are the good stuff.
The Auto pilot works on a compass heading and is good but affected by wind.
The Auto pilot works by picking out a point of reference that you want to go to and then it will correct for the wind or current if it is taking you off line and bring you back on course. Without it you would just go in a general straight direction but would be at the mercy of the wind blow you off line.
Word of advice on using a contour steer unit while pulling cranks; unless you have a lake with very slight changes in the contour of ledges, you will go crazy trying to pull cranks. Ky Lake has some great drop-off for cranks but should my boat be set up to auto-steer on those contour breaks, I would lose 100 Bandits per trip. Quick direction changes are not your friend when pulling cranks.
If we do it up right, this will be the last fishing boat we'll buy. Having said that, we are planning on going top notch. We do want to go with the IPilot, and couple that with Humminbird side image on the console and the front of the boat, and a lesser Humminbird on the rear of the boat. We still need to figure out which Humminbirds to install.
I do the same as Yikess. I have a glass boat with a 6hp kicker and a 80# Terrova with Ipilot. Push with kicker and steer with Terrova.