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

What Reaper said about hooking up to your electronics is correct. Minn Kota Ultrex is compatible to only Birds and Garmin for running routes or trails. As far as spot lock or anchor which ever you want to call it it works off the gps in the head of the motor. The Xi5 is compatible to Lowrance only.
As for me I fished with motor guides for years and was always frustrated from busted mounting brackets, bent shafts, broken cables. As for me and my fishing habits in the wood and stumps I do not want a metal shaft on my trolling motor. Since I have swapped brands I have not had a single mishap from above mentioned problems. It all comes down to your preference and fishing habits and if you are willing to pay big bucks for a motor and not being able to use all the features available. Good Luck everyone and Tight Lines. I said I would give you my opinion on this motor and did now the rest is up to you.......Ranger

What ever a person feels comfortable with works. The Xi5 has a Lifetime Warranty on its composite shaft. For me it was $1500+ vs $2300 on the Kota plus I wanted to be able to have the ability to tell the trolling ,motor to go to a waypoint and anchor upon arrival. Since i use Lowrance HDS units there was only one choice. Plus for clumsy me, I eliminated the @#%$& cable that was a tripping hazard for this Geezer. So much more room at the bow now. LOL

I tell ya fishing has gotten out of hand. Wife always told me of her grandad catching many of fish with a rod, small tackle box and 5 gallon bucket. Hear old timers talk about using trees, towers and what not as GPS reference. Can't keep up with all these new bells and whistles. Drive a man nuts and broke.

I have horribly abused my Minn Kota and she keeps on kicking like a champ. I have hit so many stumps and logs and rock and mud... . I did have to replace the mount due to the abuse 1.5 years ago, that cost 85 bucks on ebay, but the shaft and motor did not break. The fittings on the mount simply gave out from the repeated abuse. Before I got my Lowrance console finder I used to run around lakes with the trolling motor down because I only had side imaging on the TM finder--- . Yeah, that doesnt work too well on Sardis up in the creeks. But, I got to hand it to Minn Kota, they make on tough product!

[QUOTE=dstreet;3351679]NEW FORTEX FOR SALE !!!!! Dang It!


THREE YEAR OLD FORTREX FOR SALE! Gotta have that new FORTREX with a brain- spent the last two days being blown off my spots!

Frank,

did you run side/bottom image off the rear transom mount or did you add a second onto your trolling motor for the graph up front? Anyone with the Xi5 added a second setup so the trolling motor would read directly underneath it for side/bottom imaging? What are your opinions? I'm going to upgrade soon as I can find some good feedback on this. If it is worth doing or if it is something that doesn't quiet work right cause of all the spinning around the motor does. Maybe that cone is larger than I'm thinking when the down imaging is running and really from the back of my boat it isn't that much of a difference? 21' Triton if that helps those with more knowledge than myself.

Thanks

Brosborough:
I successfully mounted a di transducer to my xi5. It's pretty clean and so far has worked flawlessly. I would be happy to share pics with you or anyone else interested. I wasn't going to make the switch for two reasons: giving up di and hitting the tm on trailer and docks. The air hose coil transducer mount allowed me to run my di transducer and the Liftsaver plus mount keeps the tm in the boat when launching and docking. And I love my xi5. The foot pedal is surprisingly good compared to my previous terrova and being able to tell it to go to a waypoint and anchor from my hds 12 touch is awesome.

So your down imaging/side imaging is on the trolling Motor? I currently have the HDS 10" at my console and the 5 up front. They are networked together and all the down image/side image run off the unit which is basically at the back of my boat. Pretty standard setup. The trolling motor I have now, a 16 year old minkota just has the sonar only on it.

So with this trolling motor upgrade I'm also adding a new, probably 9" hds to the front of the boat. I'm just getting to old and I can't see the 5" hds any longer.

I've been thinking of adding the di/si as well but when it first came out everyone said not too. With the trolling motor spinning around it would be all messed up and I would not be happy. So it's been a few years and trying to find out from those who did it if that was a true statement or not. Now will be the time to do this if it is a pretty neat feature to have.

No, it won't make me catch fish like Redge and Ranger do but I can look like I can!