Has anyone heard of a way to short shaft a Minn Kota Ulterra?

[Further North]

I upgraded my Terrova to an Ulterra this season...and it sticks up even higher than a Terrova did (there's a housing for the auto-deploy that adds a few inches).

The beauty of an an Ulterra, is that you can drop the head to the deck with the push of a button...the downside is that you can't do it shallow water...and I fish shallow water a lot...and the head of the Ulterra is gonna get in the way for casts like skipping...ort anything where I want a low trajectory and entry point.

So...there's all kinds of info out there on "short shafting" trolling motors (cutting the shafts shorter)...but I've found nothing about doing this on an Ulterra.  It's more complicated than on a Terrova as there's a toothed belt that runs up the shaft...and I have to assume that there's some sort of tracking going on relative to how deep the motor is in whatever computer is involved in driving this thing.

Anyone heard anything solid?  Speculation as to what might work isn't on the table with a $2,600 trolling motor...I'm not going to try things to see if they work...

[Tracker22]

Sorry, I don't have an answer for you but I was wanting to here some of the "cons" before I purchase one. Why can't you " do it in shallow water"?

[Further North]

42 minutes ago, Tracker22 said:

Sorry, I don't have an answer for you but I was wanting to here some of the "cons" before I purchase one. Why can't you " do it in shallow water"?

The motor will hit the bottom if you drop the the head to the deck...the only available configuration from Minn Kota with iPilot and Link in 112 Ft. lbs. of thrust is a 60" shaft...that'll run a lot of motor into the bottom in 2 ft. of water...

...that said...there's a way around this...there has to be.

[A-Jay]

9 minutes ago, Further North said:

...that said...there's a way around this...there has to be.

There is ~ and it's way cheaper & easier than hacking up your motor.

Use a Push Pole.

A-Jay

 

 

[Further North]

A-Jay...that's a great idea...let's kick it around...

2 thoughts right off the bat:

1. It's one more piece of "stuff" to clutter up my deck
   1. I guarantee that at some point I'll wrap a fly line around that pole causing me to stub a cast...or worse, lose a fish, at which point a word that may sound like "gawshdamsumberfutchinmutherchuckinsomeofititches" will pass my lips...I try to avoid this...it's been known to scare the children.
2. It has me moving the boat instead of the trolling motor...I can't fish when I'm doing that.  I've run a Terrova for years, and run an Ulterra now so I can fish while th egear does the hard work...gotta be a way to keep that going on.

The other thought I have is: I already own the Ulterra, gotta find a way to work with it...and I don't like that head/shaft sticking up 30"...

[Further North]

I feel bad because I didn't give any background on my terminology.

"gawshdamsumberfutchinmutherchuckinsomeofititches"

Etymology: Word created during a hard hit by a 30" + pike while fly line is wrapped around a rope cleat and a landing net on the boat deck. The result makes a poorly managed backlash on a bait casting reel look like a walk in the park...net result (pun intended) is a lost fish, net in the water with line woven around the handle in a Celtic pattern and at least one expensive lure/fly over the side and headed for the bottom. Exceptional iterations involve at least one piece of marine electronics and the toe of your weak-side footwear.

I don't believe it's translated from Latin.

[slonezp]

Does the Ulterra deploy completely before you are able to use the trim? If that's the case, I would bet there should be a way to program it to not deploy completely. I would also guess there must be some kind of clutch that would prevent the motor from trying to destroy itself on a shallow bottom. Have you contacted MK? Have you asked this question on walleyecentral? 

EDIT, I see you brought it up in someone else's thread there.....a 3rd nostril?????

[Further North]

The Ulterra has to completely deploy before you can use any of its functions.

You can't run it into the bottom too hard...but it will let you turn on the prop when it's on the bottom...and if you move shallower you can bash it around.

There's no issue with running it at the right depth, other than the head sticking up so far that it gets in the way of low casting...and sweep hooksets.

I'll try to remember to get a couple pictures today.

[Further North]

Answer from another forum:

Can't be done with the Ulterra. The stow and deploy is timed to the length of the shaft. Timing can't be changed and if you shorten the shaft, the trolling motor won't know what to do.