Thread: What's your vote? Minn Kota Terrova w iPilot and Spot Lock, or Motor Guide Xi5?

Originally Posted by TimY

The boat I just bought had a 2014 model Terrova Riptide on it with I pilot and I have used it several times. As far as the trolling motor goes it works great. The remote is handy when you have to go to the back of the boat for something and need to hold in a general area. I dropped a marker buoy on a brush pile and turned the boat into the wind to give the spot lock a fair chance. If you think they will hold you in a small area, you are going to be highly disappointed. I had full signal strength and the boat would drift 20 to 25 ft off of the buoy marker before the trolling motor would re-engage. When it finally did it would go at times 10 to 15 ft left or right of the marker and sometimes 15 ft past it. That was in a 5 to 10 mph wind. It was designed to hold the boat within a circle so big and that's a pretty big circle. They say the XI-5 is more accurate with spot lock. The Terrova is quiet on lower speeds and that's the most important thing for me spider rigging and fishing shallow water. At .01 to .03 mph I can't hear it running but I'm half deaf. Remote is simple to read and easy to use. Battery draw is also very low. The new ones with blue tooth are supposed to be more accurate but I am going to wait and see reviews on them before I spend 350.00 on a new remote and blue tooth pod. Last thing a lot of interference if you try to mount a transducer on the motor especially with structure scan. I had to buy a separate transducer pole and mount it on the opposite side of the boat. Overall the Terrova will do anything I need it to and the speed control is really accurate because I checked it with GPS. When spider rigging, that's more important to me than spot lock.

Tim, if your thinking of upgrading with the new remote for your existing motor to be more accurate, not going to happen. The older terrova is not going to be able to upgrade to the new technology. Sad to Say.

Thanks for the information. I wondered about that when a salesman tried to tell me different. Mine does what I need it to do. Spot lock is not that big of a deal to me. I like the new XI5 and minn Kota so not going to say anything about either one.

If the newer line of Minn Kota are better, and you like/have Humminbird on board, then the Minn Kota would work. If you have Lowrance and prefer Lowrance, the XI5 is a no brainer. All I know is previous models of the Minn Kota Spot Lock were a joke and would not start adjusting until you were over 25' from your bouy and then might start at a high speed enough to cause you to fall out of the boat. I have a 45" shaft XI5 with pinpoint GPS and don't have to make hardly any adjustments unless I want to fish a different area of a brushpile.

You might want to hitch a ride with a couple of people who have these units on board so you can see for yourself. I sold a buddy of mine on the XI5 the first brushpile we hit. He was frothing at the mouth at the end of the day and wanting to know where to order it from.

I would suggest regardless of which TM you choose, be very aware of how you want to mount it before just laying it up there and drilling holes. Consider exactly how you want it to lie while stowed, you might find setting it back a bit more than usual will allow more room to get in off a bank, while keeping the TM inside the boat avoiding bumping docks and such.

Originally Posted by Eufaula boy

Better consider the Minn Kota Ultrex I saw one in action last week and was very impressed.

The Ultrex is an incredible trolling motor but you better have a big bank account. Not many fishermen can spend 2,500.00 for a trolling motor.

Got new ulktrax for christmas love it does everything they say if your down around wister come and get in boat try it out

Originally Posted by TimY

The boat I just bought had a 2014 model Terrova Riptide on it with I pilot and I have used it several times. As far as the trolling motor goes it works great. The remote is handy when you have to go to the back of the boat for something and need to hold in a general area. I dropped a marker buoy on a brush pile and turned the boat into the wind to give the spot lock a fair chance. If you think they will hold you in a small area, you are going to be highly disappointed. I had full signal strength and the boat would drift 20 to 25 ft off of the buoy marker before the trolling motor would re-engage. When it finally did it would go at times 10 to 15 ft left or right of the marker and sometimes 15 ft past it. That was in a 5 to 10 mph wind. It was designed to hold the boat within a circle so big and that's a pretty big circle. They say the XI-5 is more accurate with spot lock. The Terrova is quiet on lower speeds and that's the most important thing for me spider rigging and fishing shallow water. At .01 to .03 mph I can't hear it running but I'm half deaf. Remote is simple to read and easy to use. Battery draw is also very low. The new ones with blue tooth are supposed to be more accurate but I am going to wait and see reviews on them before I spend 350.00 on a new remote and blue tooth pod. Last thing a lot of interference if you try to mount a transducer on the motor especially with structure scan. I had to buy a separate transducer pole and mount it on the opposite side of the boat. Overall the Terrova will do anything I need it to and the speed control is really accurate because I checked it with GPS. When spider rigging, that's more important to me than spot lock.

I had exactly the same problems Tim mentioned with the interference with Downscan on front tm transducer ,and staying tight enough to a pile with the Minnkota, I was trying to two pole with it and a remote in one hand, Lets just say it was difficult!!!! I have bought the fortrex now since 95% two pole fishing, The only time I use V2 now is to troll for Hybrid's and spot lock on a school of sandies in the summer.

So, as a somewhat frugal person, I decided to simply get the iPilot kit for my Power Drive. It was $500 and gives me spot lock (the new and improved), handheld remote, cruise control, etc. Looking forward to trying it out. Just couldn't get myself to spend that much to buy a new troller plus upgrade my front finder right now. The install was easy. Looking forward to trying it out one or two times this week.

I will guarantee you an upgraded locator will put more fish in the boat than a trolling motor. Hope it works well for you.