I just picked up a Terrova for my 14' boat planning on using it a ton on the lakes for drop shotting pannies/eyes while spot locked over 15-30 fow. I do fish for cats in the spring and occasionally throughout the summer. Has anyone tried to spot lock on a river for cats? I don't fish rivers with fast current.
Catfish Fishing
Spot Lock in river while catfishing
Used it on the Mississippi off of Stoddard last week. We held nicely. There were moments where we moved a bit due to wind shift, but I get that anyway with anchoring up. So far I am very happy with what I have experienced.
Edit: Tried it out on the Rock River in moderate current. It actually worked better in the spots with a little more steady current. The most I would move was a foot or so up or down river. Not quite as good as anchoring, but it would do in a pinch if I was especially tired or lazy.
The only river fishing I have done lately is on the Milwaukee river around Theinsville.
I use it for smallie fishing and that river at times has a pretty good current, It seems to do the job, and I only have a 12V systems on the terrova on a 16.5 lund. it keeps me withing in 3 to 5 feet, and I also have the newer model;, 2020. A regular anchor at times struggles to hold me, since most of that river is rock or hard bottom.
FF on the previous post is spot on about the terrova. I did like the older model for jigging it covered more area but the new terrova works alot better for me flathead fishing the Mississippi river used it in strong current to very little current works good either way for me.
Depends on the model. I had a 2013 Terrova with IPilot and the spot lock on that one sucked. Best would be 15-20 feet. It waits till you drift and then powers you back to the spot. You would not be able to bottom fish. I have a new Terrova and spotlock is 100 times better and you keeps you positioned. It is constantly running and doesnt wait until you drift off the spot to turn on and power you back. Keeps you within 3-5 feet. I use it river fishing all the time.
My experience with spot lock is, no, it won’t work great for still fishing on the bottom. It works off satellite/gps and mine has up to 15’ of variance. So if you’re trying to keep a bait still and be in constant contact with it, spot lock isn’t going to do it well. Newer models may be better at keeping you on a spot but even a few feet will be tough to keep constant contact with a bait. I wouldn’t expect a miracle. For me spot lock works great for bobber fishing or casting.
Spot Lock with a 12 volt single battery system is going to need a high capacity battery to get the performance you want. You may even need to run 2 batteries to get the run time you want. I would expect to need to run the trolling motor at 30-50% of thrust to combat the current, from there you can calculate the amp draw per hour and compare that to your battery’s capacity to get a rough idea of run time.