cable driven vs electronic directed trolling motor

[Tacklebag23]

Which do you prefer? Why? and what kind of fishing do you mainly do?

[crappiepappy]

cable drive ... for quick direction control.

I mostly fish for Crappie, but fish for Bass & Hybrid Stripers on occasion.

I can see the need for electronic drive for those that do a lot of open water trolling, constant forward motion/contour following, or those that fish standing up for long periods of time (& not having a recessed foot pedal) ... but, changing directions on the elec drive requires using your hand to push buttons on a remote, and I need both hands to man my fishing rod(s) (since I may be using one to as many as four rods at the same time).

... pappy

[stripernut1]

i have a terrova with the i pilot remote control that hangs on my belt, great tool for trolling. my terrova also comes with electric steer foot control also to use instead of the remote, nothing to turn on or off, just use either one.
i will say there is a little getting use to the electric steer foot control, but once you get the hang of it i dont see a lot of difference between cable steer and electric steer.

[tgordon6233]

I love my Terrova with I pilot link. It has a hand control I wear around my neck and a foot pedal.

I crappie fish with a double seat up front. My son sits on the right side with the foot pedal and I sit on the left with the hand held. We both have control of the TM Incase one of us is busy with a fish or out of the seat.

[fishinfreak]

i use a cable driven trolling motor i'm a vary aggressive fisherman so i have to be able to turn on a dime and the electronic directed trolling motors are just to slow for me. but if i fished big water more frequently the electronic motors would be nice. just in my opinion they aren't very good on the smaller lakes here in Kentucky that don't offer a lot of fishing away from the bank.

[headbanger]

iPilot's the only way to if you do any trolling whatsoever.

[GeoFisher]

i use a cable driven trolling motor i'm a vary aggressive fisherman so i have to be able to turn on a dime and the electronic directed trolling motors are just to slow for me. but if i fished big water more frequently the electronic motors would be nice. just in my opinion they aren't very good on the smaller lakes here in Kentucky that don't offer a lot of fishing away from the bank.

That is the same thing I found out, and the motors to turn the motors in the original models were a little noisy.

I'd be on Dale Hollow, quite as all get out and here the motor zzzzzz........zzzzzzz.......zzzzzzz........zzzzzzz ........every time I stepped on the control to turn left or right. It was hideously loud.

[Tacklebag23]

Thanks for the replies. Pretty much same thoughts I had but wanted to make sure I hadnt missed something. I tend to do mostly bass & side with fishinfreak as I too am a aggressive fisherman, slaloming in and out of stickups, getting lures unhung from shore, etc and need quick responsive sterring and ability to 180 in an instant. Also found the electronic a little loud on quiet nights.

Also agree if you are a crappie, striper, or even below dams fisherman the electronic with all the gadgets would be nice

[Moveon]

I read in the In-Fishermen Largemouth Bass Handbook of Strategies that electric motor's spook the fish. The book stated some where in the first few chapter that SCUBA DIVERS noticed this happening while they were observing the bass under the water and a electric trolling motor was turned on.

Now I always wondered to myself if the fish could sense the electric trolling motor's noise and pressure waves. I figured that they knew or sense the noise of the motor and prop but I was not sure if they were spooked by the noise or not. Now I'm thinking that maybe they are spooked by the noise of the motors.

Now I've wondered about this for a good many years. I got my first electric trolling motor (Motor Guide HAWG) electric motor on my first bass boat. That was way back in 1978. Before this I rented boats and used oars to maneuver the boat around the fishing area. We owned a 20 HP mercy outboard motor that we used on the rental boats down on KY lake from the 1940's on though the 1970's. We caught lots of big bass and I often wondered why the bass fishing was not as good. Sure KY lakes natural wood cover was vanishing over the past 50 years or so. And the lake was new back in the 1940's when my father would bring home huge stringers of LM Bass after a weekend trip to the lake.

When I started fishing KY lake in 1959 I was about 8 years old and I remember getting up at 4 am eating breakfast and being down at the boat dock before the sun came up. My dad and I would load up the boat with the tackle box and a few rods and reels and fire up the gas motor and head out of the bay towards the islands on the West Side of the Lake. We had our spots that we fished on the way to Shannon Creek. Now when we got to the hot spot we would motor upwind or upcurrent (I didn't really pay much attention to the current to our detriment at times) and would cut off the engine and drift with the wind while making multiple casts. We caught a lot of bass that way. We were silent as we drifted with the wind. We would drift on though the fishing spot and wait until we were down wind of the spot and ony then fire up the motor and repeat the process. We didn't troll though the area. If we messed up and got the drift line wrong we would correct the boat position with oars. The only time we would use the motor is if the wind was too brisk to oar into the wind when we got hung up on a stump. We fished exclusively with bomber crank baits and in less than 20 ft of water. Normally I could feel my bait hitting the bottom or running into a stump from time to time. We fished the head and ends of the island and then the bends in the creek channels. But we didn't turn on noisy electric trolling motors. I think that we caught more fish that way.

Now these days I would not be caught dead out on the water without my Min Kota working properly. My Motor Guide Hawg died about 1996 and I immediately went out and bought a new electric trolling motor that was even more powerful than the one I had before. I would not consider going fishing without the trolling motor on my boat.

But I still think that I would catch much more fish if I fished like I did back in the 1960's and drifted with the wind more often.

Reading the In-Fisherman Largemouth Bass book and seeing this tread got me to thinking about this again. I know I've posted this before but I truly think that electric trolling motors do spook the fish to a degree.

I don't go fishing like I used to due to health problems. But I still enjoy learning and reading about fishing.

[Sth]

I believe that cable drive units are quieter, react faster, and more reliable. I have a Minn Kota Powerdrive and I have had to replace the control board a couple of times. I don't feel that my trolling motor is reliable any more because you never know when the board if going to fail. I believe that the more complicated machine is, the more there is to go wrong, especially when you mix electronics with outdoor element. There is also a lag time when changing directions, you have to wait for the electric geared motor to turn and it's slower than using a cable to turn the unit with your foot. I have also wondered if the noise of the gears turning the motor left and right would spook fish, especially night fishing. I will probably end up replacing my unit with a cable drive in the future, they are so expensive, I have been waiting on a major failure to warrant spending the money versus putting up with what I currently have.