Minn Kota Ulterra Review

[takeemmac]

I have the I pilot now and it is awesome except for the fact it auto deployed 2 times since I have owned it.  The first time I was in rough water coming down off plane the second was while I was on plane that was a mess,  it messed up the shaft and the interlocking spacer. since then I have installed a ram mount and whenever I stow it, the ram mount gets locked down.  I really hope the new one dose not have that problem. 

 

Please don't get me wrong despite the self deploying issues it would be ILL advised for anyone to try to take my IPILOT  Its worth more than twice its weight in gold.  I fish about an avg. of  8 big bass tour.  from march till sept. and I will not fish one with an I PILOT I use the spot lock 20 times a day.    Has anyone owned a ULTERRA  long enough to find out if the locking mec. works in rough water?

[Slade House]

That happeend to me more than once, it broke the spacer and the thing the spacer locks into to allow you to turn it.  I used my ipilot for 300 days last year , and its a heaping pile of crud sitting in my garage right now, as everything plastic broke on it.  the worst is when the magnets stop linning up and then it won't turn off, that's when the fun starts.  

 

Anyway my biggest thing i hate about my ipilot is the really really loud noise it makes when it turns left or right. I couldn't keep denying how loud it was anymore.   When i was at ICast this year, i played around with the Ulterra for about an hour , and i can tell you that they did absolutley nothing to fix the noise problem (which does hurt your fishing ) .   

So i recently bought the Motor Guide XI5 and i couldn't be happier here is why

1.  its a way way quieter, by a large margin

2.  its smaller and takes up less space

3.  smaller and lighter remote, and much more intuitive (and doesn't suffer from crappy battery connectivity issues ipilot does) 

4.  much much better wireless foot pedal (it has feedback via a spring, the speed adjustment dial is actually possible to adjust with your foot) 

5.  i can adjust and move my spot lock location 5 feet in any direction with a touch of a button

6.  better integration with fish finder. 

[NEOhioBigBass]

_{Glad to hear you like the Xi5.  Mine will be installed this weekend.  Now if I can just get the ice to melt so I can try it out.}

[Long Mike]

Gentlemen, let me get this straight.  Are you guys reviewing an Ulterra that was once offered in the past, and has since been pulled off the market, or are you reviewing the new Ulterra that has just been released to the public?

[catdaddy]

I just install my minn kota ulterra. The guys that say it will not be popular wait until your lower back start hurting and got to reach down to pull that heavy 80 or 101 thrust out of the water. How about when you get that bite you been waiting for and in current or no current you want to hold your boat right there. The traditional trollingmotor will not do that ulterra will. The moment of truth when you got that pig on the other end and you work the trollingmotor trying to stay from anything that will let that 8 pounder go one touch with ulterra and spot on lock you down to get her in the boat. These my thoughts

[Slade House]

bottom line is , minn kota is super loud , XI5 is not.

[Further North]

I've been beating the snot out of a Terrova since they first came out and I have had none of the problems other folks claim...my current one (a 101) is 4 years old, gets fished all day when I am in the boat, has been installed on three different boats, has been run into rocks, muck, a few piers...

 

Does it make noise when it turns?  Sure.

 

But...

 

1. I don't believe that little bit of noise effects my fishing.  If it does, so does the prop noise...and all trolling motors have that.  And it's surely no less disturbing than a sonar ping.
2. if you let the Ultera handle boat control rather than trying to drive it like a cable steer all the time) there's little of that going on anyway.

I get that using an electric steer trolling motor would be a PITA if I tried to use it like a cable steer...but I changed how I fish to use the tool and there's no way I'd go back to a cable steer at this point.  I probable don't touch the pedal or the remote more than a couple times every 5 minutes unless I'm in an area that requires a lot of input (going around a sharp point, for instance).  Other than that, I let the motor do its thing.

 

Last weekend, I went to sunken island, set the motor to follow the 10 foot contour line and fished for 40 minutes without touching the pedal or the remote once.  Caught 4 smallies, two decent pike and had a 40"+ muskie on for about two minutes.  Wonder what I woulda had if it weren't for all that steering noise!

[Slade House]

Hey some people fish in clear lakes  in calfironia where if you're not using 10lb or less flurocarbon , youre not catching anything.  (note my home lake record is 21 LBS .  sound matters 

So the proof is in the pudding

 

video of the minn kota w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKY4jVNeLTE   watch at the 0:30  for the noise .  then watch at 1:50 for the anchor feature that even in no wind it swings the boat wildlly the other direction.  it does a 180 when you hit anchor mode everytime.

 

 lets compare.  here is how the XI5 sounds when its turning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kj-6iAQ75U.   (drops the mic) 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXRoE8AN9ZU   and one more XI5 video  at the 1:00 mark, notice how the bow of the boat stays pointed in the same direction the entire time?  and notice how fast the XI5 rotates and how quietly it does? it takes 4 seconds to do a full 360 degree turn.  

Like i said i fished both , my friends have been on my boat with both, and motorguide destorys XI5 my buddies agree too. 

 oh yeah you know what sucks? when you want to change your anchor position on the Minnkota , vs the motorguide where i can press down on the remote  , and then left on the remote it and it will move my anchor position 5 feet backwards and 5 feet left you can adjust your anchor postion in 5 foot increments without ever having to turn off anchor mode.  

[tomustang]

Has anyone owned a ULTERRA long enough to find out if the locking mec. works in rough water?

I have ran one through rough water several times. There is a mechanical element to deploying on the ulterra so it won't do the same free fall like the terrova will.

Furthermore, if you plan on running in rough water, MK tells you to drop the lock nut so the shafts does not drop and self depoly.

[Further North]

It's probably a safe bet that there are NW WI, MN and Canadian waters that rival anything in California for clarity.

 

I didn't claim the XI5 was bad, far from it;  it works great.

 

...but the Terrova/Ulterra is nowhere near as bad as portrayed.  If, for instance, the bow is pointed into the wind, the Terrova/Ultera will not swing 180° when deployed...I do this multiple times a day, every day I fish.

 

...and I'll stand by the the idea that while the turning motors do make noise, if you use it like it's made to be used that is virtually eliminated, and has less effect than prop noise or sonar pings.

 

I've fished the same water at the same time as folks with XI5s...it's a heck of a piece of equipment...but no one who had one caught more fish because of the trolling motor they used.  Some days it was the XI5 boat, some days it was the Terrova boat.  Heck...some days it varied by the hour or the minute.

 

People should buy what they like, and not trash other folk's choices, IMO.

[tomustang]

Sound, haven't seen a bass care about sound. Boat moving through water, walking on deck, bait hitting water, talking, music, coughing, motor prop, sonar pings etc all make sounds..

GPS positioning, depends a lot of where you're placed to get a signal. If I'm under a bridge I can get a good lock no matter what I'm using. Bad enough my cars Garmin have to await accuracy every time I turn it on. There have been times where I've been locked dead in a spot and other times I've move around 15 ft (in current)