I-pilot link question

[TrollnDrift]

I have been looking into ipilot link. I was curious if I am trolling with my electric and it won't quite make the speed I need, to achieve a higher speed can I bump on the gas motor as long as it is straight will the link still guide me?

[guyonacouch]

I run my main motor and my i-pilot link together quite a bit when I'm trolling cranks - especially if it's windy or if I want to save battery. I like to steer the boat with autopilot and point where I want to go by watching the line auto pilot creates on my GPS or set way points and tell the motor to go to the waypoint to go over the structure I want to hit. My 80lb Terrova will pull my Lund Fisherman 1700 up to 3 mph fairly easily though, so I use it on its own without the main motor pretty often. I typically don't use the contour follow option when I'm trolling because I've found that lakes with tight contour lines make the motor make a lot of very small adjustments that struggle to keep the boat straight and maintain a consistent trolling speed. After using this motor, I wouldn't want to ever go back to what I was using before - it's so much easier to control my boat and stay on the structure I want to fish.

[TheHogSeeker]

My guess is it will work, iLink takes an affect to the wind and the trolling motor will adjust according to wind speed/waves pushing you off course. So if you have your gas motor going to me I see it as a added "wind" that your i-link will adjust to to keep you on course. That't just what I think and not what I know, maybe others have tried this out..

[B-man715]

As said above, it works great in manual mode and good with auto-pilot when pushed by the big motor, but follow the contour sucks with crankbaits. (with or without gas assistance)

It is better suited for slower fishing (more vertical- when a big direction swing doesn't matter) like rigging, jigging and ok for bouncing.

[TrollnDrift]

Thanks for the info. I am pulling a 16' alumacraft with a 55lb terrova. I can make 2.5 on calm water but those waves eat a lot of power. If I would have known I probly would have bumped up one more size, too late now, it works great most days but the river takes it's toll on the little 55lb motor. Thinking the link setup will benefit me quite a bit just have to bite the bullet and put out the cash.