Please school me

[grizwilson]

now when you break off and have to retie you will still be on spot not half way across the lake, carry a spare battery for the remote. Good equipment

[silverside]

Set it correctly. Set the scale to the boat if available

No mention of this in the manual. What do you mean regarding this?

[Grainraiser]

I'm going to break down and get a me spot lock trolling motor next winter. Right now I have a handheld tiller trolling motor and I can certainly see the advantage of having spot lock. Right now a throw a bouy when I find a group of fish on Livescope.

[Alphahawk]

Minn Kotas have a scale to set according to size of boat. On my old Ulterra I had it set at lowest scale as my boat was small and setting it on max scale it would use way too much force when trying to maintain Spot Lock causing boat to correct and over correct always over shooting and then trying to come back. Not having boat scale set correctly made for a frustrating day. I have a new Quest Ulterra. I owned the 2 previous versions of this motor. To say it is light years ahead of the model it replaced is an understatement. No roaming on Spot Lock with this motor. It keeps you within 3 feet of where you lock it. No more iPilot-iPilot Link…..this motor has advanced GPS functions on all models. No more puck mounted on the boat…it is all built in. Jog…Drift Mode…..Advanced Tracking…..Go-To features. Has a lot of functions I may never use. All the Quest versions are brushless and extremely quiet. They have beefed up the mechanics on the Quest motors big time. My old Ulterra weighed in at 80 pounds….the Quest Ulterra comes in at 110 pounds. Ninety pounds of thrust using 24 volts. If I add a 3rd battery to take it to 36 volts get 115 pounds of thrust. I’ve had this motor out 5 times now and am delighted with it. It is what Spot Lock should have been all along.

Regards


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[Ketchn]

No mention of this in the manual. What do you mean regarding this?

this part is critical unless you like the ole whoops I took a swim because the dang thing went bananas on me when I leaned left it went right at 20 mph .....

[slowhand]

No mention of this in the manual. What do you mean regarding this?

From Minn Kota setup manual:
Scroll through the Content Area using either your finger or the Screen Navigation button to find the System System button. Once in the System Menu, scroll through to find the Boat Scale Boat Scale option and select it. The Boat Scale options appear. Select one of the five Boat Scales, either +2, +1, 0, -1, or -2..


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[Tracker123]

this part is critical unless you like the ole whoops I took a swim because the dang thing went bananas on me when I leaned left it went right at 20 mph .....

Also to note: Do not push the rabbit button standing up in the bow.

[catchNreeleaze]

all great advice items . put the puck close to it as well
and the be near stopped is critical too
always face the wind
set it to fit your boat on weight and speed
and remember this .....
they tend to keep you in the zipcode , NOT exactly always right where you anchor down
AND a strong breeze helps , on calm days they roam a bit too much ....
beats tossing out an anchor out by 20 miles for sure
congrats ....

Ditto.... i will add never try to use it under a bridge....you gonna try it anyway....just be ready for a weird ride... if spooking the fish matters....learn how to start down stream or down wind and to the outside of where you wanna sit...and walk it in a little at the time... or "jog it in" which is the strong suit of positional trolling motors. Fishing just got funner the first time you cut it on.

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[soonerdg]

Here are the things I've learned. Most have been mentioned.

the spotlock is accurate to roughly 5 feet. Which means your boat can and will "wander" in a 10 foot circle with the spotlock point at the center.
Spotlock works best with some wind. The lighter the wind the more the boat will "wander" within circle mentioned above
Get the GPS puck as close to the TM as you can and then make sure you set the "offset" in the TM settings.
Make sure you follow the calibration instructions and calibrate the GPS
If ANYTHING touches the pedal while in SL mode it will disengage the spot lock (this gets really annoying)
Learn to use the "jog" feature to ease up on a spot. If i find a fish on livescope then I usually hit spot lock about 10-20 feet away and let the boat settle down. Then I use the jog forward feature to move up 5 feet at a time until I have the boat where I want it. This has saved me from blowing fish out more times than I can count. You can jog in all 4 directions to get your best boat position.

all that said, spotlock is an absolute game changer. No more drifting off of your spot while you put a fish in the LiveWell or retie your line. No more working the trolling motor while you try to drop a bait on a finicky crappie.

[Mr. S]

The best thing I like about my Ulterra, I fish solo mostly. I use mine when I launch. You always have to remember to turn it on before you launch. And I always test its function before I slide off the trailer.