vernon

I concur. After all the hype, my expectations were pretty high and the Ultrex honestly has exceeded all of them to this point.

It was "in" when I caught the snake. Didn't think it was necessary to update the whole story to modern lingo but there's always somebody that wants to make a big deal about semantics and just blow right by the entire point of the deal.......... I'm kinda starting to like these goofy little yellow faced guys.

YOU DA MAN! Or Donna is. I mean woman. Placing order now!

How could anyone pass up an offer of that magnitude? The sales pitch alone makes it completely irresistible. Just tell me where to send my credit card information. Price (which you failed to mention) is no object. Finally! The Mother of All Fishing Tutorials! Thank you for making this epic package available to the masses!

Nice! I'm pretty sure that that's Kathy's pet duck. If so, his name is "Duck". If you hold food in your hand and call him by name he will usually come right up to the boat. That's how you can tell if it's her duck or not. At least that's what she told me. He travels around to different parts of the lake a lot too. Actually kind of amazing that he can be in so many places but he is.

Probably why Poke Man or whatever it's called is so popular. Bunch of frustrated former fishers in search of their "deserved" reward.

Another look behind the "curtain". I love it! And I religiously follow the TEN day forecasts and have always wondered why I waste my time. Just figured it was kind of like not being able to look away from a car crash. However, now I know it's simply because I'm old! What a relief - thanks for clearing that up.

Yep. This. The transducer works perfectly insofar as the sonar. You just can't link the GPS or sonar to the Ultrex in order to utilize waypoints and routes. Not a big deal to me but it might be others. Motor Guide has the same issue in that they will only link to Lowrance but won't link to Humminbird. I understand the corporate affiliation stuff but still seems kind of dumb to limit one's products in such a manner. Kinda like not being able to call somebody on an iPhone if they have a Samsung or some other brand phone. Again, doesn't impact me one way or another though.

There is no lag that I was able to notice.

You should utilize your influence at War Eagle and encourage them to add an under spin version to this head (which I really like by the way). Or is it actually Donna that swings the big bat with those guys? After all, it WAS her recommendation that got me using them!

Firefighter too? Holy cats! I did that for seven years until I fell off a roof and broke my back and my brother retired as an assistant chief 18 months ago. Lots of affection for cops and firemen!

That's not entirely true. Suburban's aren't quite big enough. I'm pretty sure he had two Excursions welded together.

Had that happen one time many years ago. Ever since, I simply vacate said cove and move on to another. Homey don't do Jake!

I've been doing that for about forty years now or however long BP's been there. Nonetheless, for some asinine reason it still hasn't stopped me from completely ignoring "lessons learned" and defaulting back to my irrational habit of attempting to beat the water on the banks to a virtual foam. In fact, if provided the opportunity to actually fish the BP aquarium, I have no doubt that I would immediately start banging spinnerbaits off the sides of the tank. You hear me talkin' to you Champ?

Exactly. If they could just get close with the 24 hour forecast more often than not I'd be happy!

Sounds like a tall tale about a great tail if you ask me.

Oh my. That's not exactly "God's country" now is it? I don't even like traveling down that stretch of 435 for fear of becoming collateral damage!

Hey Bill Kathy and I will be down sometime next Saturday the 22nd. I was hoping to make it by the OA event but still don't really know what the odds are of that actually happening. Nonetheless, I'll let you know when we're "in country" if you want to try and meet up somewhere. We'll be there for the week and are going to be staying at Stillwater's over at Indian Point but I could easily boat over towards your place or State Park if that would be of any help. I'm sure we'll be over that way a bunch of times anyways and you know how I love a boat ride!

Well, crap - I don't know if that should make me feel better or worse!

Hey Skeet, sorry about the unfortunate circumstances but glad you're still in the game! After my one day experiment with the Ultrex I think it might actually be a little quieter than the Fortrex. Certainly not any noisier and I didn't find the electric motor in the head of the thing to be loud or annoying at all although it's a little weird watching that thing operate. Kind of like there's a little R2D2 on the front of the boat! I also always thought that my Fortrex had a little bit of vibration when operating on higher speeds and there's none of that with the Ultrex. Hope this helps.

What timing! I had the chance to get out yesterday for the first time with the Minn Kota Ultrex (the one that does NOT auto deploy) and was beyond impressed. Of course, I must caveat that by mentioning that I'm sure everyone's wants, needs and desires will be different but, for me, this thing is literally life changing (more about that in a second). I would also point out that my boat has Lowrance electronics so the motor is not compatible to be networked thru the boat GPS/sonar but still does some pretty amazing stuff with the built in GPS. Between my brother and me we messed around with the motor, the FOB and the owner's manual for about an hour before we were confident and comfortable that we knew how everything worked. That being said, anybody could just dump the motor and go just like a Fortrex but in order to take advantage of all the technology we decided to just invest the time to figure it all out from the get go. The Spot Lock is also pretty much a no brainer. Just push the button and the motor will hold you where you are. We were at Hillsdale Lake which is pretty wide open but it was an unusually calm day. Winds maxed out at 10 - 15 mph I'd say. However, the motor was pretty much perfect in holding position under those conditions. I nosed up to a tree in the middle of the lake and the Spot Lock kept the boat within five feet or less of that tree for at least ten minutes before we moved on to other challenges. I would also point out that the boat needs to be pointing into the wind or else it will eventually pivot around the motor until it IS into the wind. Pretty logical stuff I guess but wanted to mention it nonetheless. All of the GPS related features are pretty cool even though I don't know if I'll personally use some of them all that much. Even though the unit isn't compatible with the Lowrance electronics it is capable of storing routes and waypoints on its own. I don't remember exactly how many but I think it's a dozen or so. This enables the operator to run a route down a bank, along contour lines or whatever up to a quarter mile, save the route and then recall and repeat the route as many times as desired. You can also store waypoints and, again, up to a quarter mile, the unit will take you back to that spot either by retracing the previous path or directly "as the crow flies" - your choice. However, the feature that I appreciated the most and the one that I referred to as "life changing" is the "North Up" setting. By engaging the prop at whatever speed you choose and then activating the North Up, the motor will continue on that heading until you adjust the foot pedal to change course. I was able to set the speed at "3", engage the constant "on" and then punch North Up and the motor would then make whatever heading adjustments to maintain that course. The "life changing" part is I was able to work hundreds of yards of shoreline, tree rows, boat docks, etc. while standing flat footed and only occasionally tapping the foot pedal to adjust the course whenever not following a straight line. I would point out, too, that I don't remember hardly ever running any of my other trollers on a setting much below 6 or 7 as it just didn't seem all that useful. But when the "brain" of the Ultrex is doing the driving there's no need for the constant off and on at a higher speed like is often necessary in order the change directions with a standard motor. As a guy that suffered a broken back in a fall 35 years ago, "life changing" in this aspect might just be an understatement. For all these years, the discomfort brought about by standing on one foot all day long had cut short or ruined more than one day on the water. When we were done yesterday my back felt better than I can ever remember after a day of fishing. The freedom of being able to move freely about the boat without worrying about drifting onto the bank, into rocks or trees was amazing. I would think that for guides working with clients or even dads trying to manage the complexities of fishing with kids this would be invaluable. Need to retie, land a fish or pick out a backlash? Just hit the Spot Lock and you're not going anywhere. We were in a little main lake pocket and sat the boat in the middle in about 25' of water and engaged the spot lock. We then spent the next 30 minutes fan casting the entire area while moving around from the front deck to the back deck and everywhere in between in order to get the best casting angle to whatever piece of structure we were targeting. It was literally as if we were fishing off of a dock except for the fact that we could move the "dock" anywhere on the lake that we wanted to go. Oh yeah - a lot of people have asked about the foot control itself and it's really good. The electric assist is fantastic in that the pedal provides some resistance similar to cable steers but the response of the head/motor is off the charts and there's no "torque" whatsoever. Whenever I wanted to change directions abruptly, 180 degrees or even 360, the motor reacted faster than I could ever have done with the old Fortrex. And while the foot pedal tension is adjustable like any other troller, the factory setting on mine is perfect for what I like. While there is resistance, I could easily move the pedal with my finger tips if necessary. It only took a light toe tap to alter the course when operating with constant "on" and it seldom over corrected due to being too "loose". Now, granted, this was a one day deal under relatively docile conditions but we tried to create as many "normal" fishing situations as we could over the course of 6 - 7 hours and we found no shortcomings. At this point I am completely sold and can't wait to get more time on the water with this thing. Again, I'm sure it's not for everybody but I can't help but think that it will greatly enhance the average guys fishing experience is some way or another. I would highly recommend to anybody that can justify the cost of an upgrade and can't imagine why anybody wouldn't spring for the difference if buying a new boat or trolling motor. And, for those who run Humminbird electronics they will also enjoy the additional benefit of networking with your sonar/GPS. Hope this review is of some benefit to those of you that have been wondering. If you have any specific questions, fire away and I'll do my best to answer them honestly and accurately.

I had a Humminbird 898c and 798c on my old boat. Had them installed in 2012 - both had side scan and down imaging and, while I'm sure I never learned how to utilize them to the best of their capability, I found them extremely easy to use. Read the instructions and set them up once out of the box and only changed the setting a few times when I was bored and just felt like playing. Now, keep in mind I might have missing a great deal of stuff but I was dumb happy and never experienced any electronics related angst and never stressed over how they did or didn't work. When I bought my Z520c last March it was equipped with a Lowrance HDS Gen 3 12' at the console and a 9' on the bow. I was pretty excited in that the guys where I bought the boat really hyped up the Lowrance over the competition. Yee Haw! Deep water structure fishing here I come. Popped in a $200 Navionics chip and headed off to explore the seas. Well, fast forward a year and these two boxes of technology are still driving me out of my mind. I have spent easily more than a hundred hours researching, reading, watching videos, taking notes you name it and I still have no clue what I'm doing with these things and, worse yet, when I do get them "set up" I have zero confidence that what I'm seeing is even real. I am consistently frustrated beyond reason pretty much every time I go out because each trip is an exclusive episode of Man vs. Electronics. Most of the time all I want to so is be able to see is where the dad gum river or creek channel is so as to (hopefully) not run the boat aground. No soap. Now, I'm well aware and beyond positive that the fault lies completely with me and my incompetence but when it comes down to it, so what? At the end of every day I've still got five thousand dollars worth of electronics that for all practical purposes just as well be Etch-a-Sketchs. After a full year of "experience" I still can't even get the digital depth reading to show up on the chart screen. I guess my point is, do your research and buy the best that you can afford but also take care not to out kick your coverage when it comes to knowing how to operate the brand/model of your choice. And, most definitely, do NOT attend any of my electronics seminars! Good luck to all.

Based purely on that classy avatar, you can fish outta my boat anytime! Rock Chalk!

Oh no you didn't.

I'm such a loser when it comes to properly utilizing this kind of technology that I'm lucky if I know how deep the water below the boat is - nonetheless thought some might find it useful.