The i-Pilot Spot Lock feature
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With the FLW league championship now in the past, I had a chance to spend some time working with the i-Pilot's "Spot Lock" feature. Spot lock, which makes use of i-Pilot's internal GPS receiver, will maintain the trolling motor within a 5-foot circle of a GPS-identified position. If current, wind or waves moves the trolling motor out of that 5-foot circle, i-Pilot automatically adjusts prop speed and direction to return to the 5-foot circle. Once back in the circle, i-Pilot will adjust the motor speed to zero.
Now, I could have picked a flat calm day to demonstrate the Spot Lock feature, but that wouldn't have been fair. Rather, I ran these field tests under less-desirable, yet far more realistic conditions of overcast skies, drizzle, and 20-25 mph winds from the W/SW. This first photo (above) illustrates today's environmental conditions. By the time I finished my work, these 1-2 foot waves had built to 2+, and the wind was gusting to 32 mph (as indicated by our National Weather Service office. Good conditions under which to test i-Pilot's ability to hold a spot!
Before we go into the i-Pilot's performance, let's take a look at the i-Pilot remote and the portion that controls the Spot Lock feature. This portion of the remote is in the lower right hand corner, and is really just two buttons (highlighted in blue in the second photo, and shown in detail in the third): an anchor, which engages the Spot Lock feature, and a curly arrow, which allows the user to reengage Spot Lock for a particular, saved location. When Spot Lock is engaged, an anchor is displayed in the upper right hand corner of the i-Pilot remote display (4th picture). Three different positions can be saved by Spot Lock; these memory spot assigned to positions (A, B, and C) can be selected by the user when Spot Lock is first engaged. In the last photo, I have Spot Lock engaged (anchor), I am using memory location C (below the anchor), and i-Pilot is controlling the prop speed (prop symbol in middle; 3 1/2 is the prop speed setting, for a GPS speed of 0.9 mph). The final item on the remote display is the GPS signal strength (4 bars) in the upper left corner.
On to the test. Here's what I did: I motored into the middle of 6000 acre Lake Wissota where I wouldn't get any sort of break from the wind. I cleared the active trail from my Humminbird 997, and then idled while the wind set up a nice drift for several hundred feet. I wanted to see how fast the wind would push me around in the absence of any input from i-Pilot. That drift (from SW to NE) is shown in the first screen capture from my Humminbird 997. After dropping a quick waypoint, I circled back towards my original position, and engaged Spot Lock, and waited. For almost 10 minutes, Spot Lock performed precisely as advertised in Wissota's wind and waves. As I was pushed away from the saved position, Spot Lock controlled the prop speed and direction to bring me right back to within a small distance (impossible for me to measure) of the original location. The second screen capture shows the tight ball of trails present after nearly 10 minutes of Spot Lock doing its job.
After 10 minutes, I was convinced about i-Pilot's ability to hold a position. So, I turned the feature off, and drifted away from the saved location. That drift is shown in the third screen capture. After drifting for a few hundred feet, I reengaged Spot Lock by pressing the curly arrow button underneath the anchor button on the i-Pilot remote. I-Pilot knew just what to do and where to go. It dialed my prop speed up to 10, and ran directly back to the original, saved location where I had engaged Spot Lock in the first place. That run back is shown in the fourth screen capture. Note the scale on the left hand side of the Humminbird 997's screen: I zoomed in much closer than I had in the first three screen captures, to demonstrate how closely packed the GPS trails are while Spot Lock is engaged. It looks like nearly all of those trails fit within a 20' x 20' box, or right about a boat-length. In my opinion, that represents excellent performance in the face of a nice chop and 20+ mph winds with much higher gusts. The last screen capture shows the entire test, from start to finish, including the portion of the test when I turned Spot Lock off and then turned it back on again.
Spot Lock is a fantastic boat control tool, and will definitely help you put more fish in the boat. Applications that come to mind immediately include casting cranks or jigs to wingdams on rivers, live bait rigging or slip bobber fishing over small, isolated humps or rockpiles, or even just simply holding your boat in a specific place while you fight, land, and release fish in typical walleye-fishing weather conditions: wind, waves, and current. Once my on-the-water test was over, the skies cleared a bit, which meant it was time to fish. I broke out a jig pole and decided to pitch a few minnows around a small rock hump that rises to 9 feet in 30+ feet of water, using i-Pilot's Spot Lock to hold me in position against the wind and waves. This 3.5 lb smallmouth bass greeted me shortly thereafter. That's the first fish I've caught with help from my i-Pilot, and I know it won't be the last!
Dr. Jason Halfen
Professional Walleye Angler
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