[sparkchaser]

Just wondering on everyone's opinion and why. I am about to purchace some new graphs and TM. I'm leaning towards Hbird graphs because of the Ilink, but would be ok with just Ipilot. What do ya think....

[Fish Hawk]

Hbird, Ipilot, and Ilink. Hbird is more bang for the $$ and its all one unit. Terrova with Ipilot is the shit, add the link and thats a system. All I'm missing is the link.

[Fishless]

I hate my terrova with I-pilot and all the crap, but then again I am not a person that trolls the couple features I like the GPS lock to hold the boat and the maximizer does keep battery life good, I do not like the electric gear drive turning unit way to slow to respond I will go back to push pull cable with my next troll motor. Terrova has been in twice for warranty work, one time for brushes and noise the second time for the gear drive going out, (thank god for two year warranty)

I have always had eagle/lowrance products and I will go back to them also, very unimpressed with humminbird especially the 957ci hd down scan has been a problem since the day I bought it and it to this day will not work on the terrova troll motor in deep water with sensitivity turned up the interference from the troll motor wipes it out, humminbird customer service who is normally good sucked this last time but was referred to minn kota techs and Dave at kota has been great sending me all sorts of stuff to try to clear the inference and cking with humminbird techs to figure out the problem. There are pages of people complaining about humminbird/minn kota interference and yet nothing on lowrance. Dave gave me more things to try on the troll motor just need to find time to do it.

[Fish Hawk]

wow, guess I'm lucky, I have had no problems. for a troller gear drive is the only way to go. I'm with ya Bruce when beating the bank cable drive works better.

[sparkchaser]

Yea I have to agree if I was not trolling as much I would go with cable drive, but I love the fact that I can leave my TM and know that it will continue on course in any condition hands off. So the Ipilot is a must for me. Just not to sure on spending the money on the Ilink, which of course ties me to Hbird.

[Piscolli]

Hand off trolling? IPilot? What a bunch of girly men. 
The Puff doesn't even have water temp, but maybe after SCF that will change.

I like Lowrance but the deal with Minkota and HBird is too sweet.

[sparkchaser]

So I decided to roll with a Hbird 1198c SI and the Terrova I link. Depending on where you go for your info, lake master chips for the west region should be available as early as summer, or as late as January. I only bought one graph for now, and plan on swapping from front to back using two ducers. I'm pretty sure Hbird will be following Lowrance with touch screens, and will get another then. Either way quite and upgrade from my last boats electronics and TM which were a Lowrance X135 up front, an Eagle fish easy at the dash, and a Maxxum 80 TM.

[Art Chamberlin]

Great choice!........Art

[craigm]

I have Terrovas on both boats , I can't deal with a wire drive having a mind of its own when you take your foot off the pedal ( actually I have never used the pedal on either Terrova ). As to electronics I gave the Ilink thing some thought and came up with, it is a gimmick that I won't ever use. The Ipilots ability to follow a previous trolling track up to 2 miles long kinda makes Ilink expensive and irrelevant. Another factor to consider in your area the ilink only works with Lakemaster charts and there are none currently for the southwest  I rely on my instincts and Lowrance HDS structure scan  to show me where the fish are . Don't know about your fishing habits but when I troll I don't have any problem following a contour line on a gps screen having a machine tell me where to fish based on depth just seems stupid to me , particularly if I have to use what I feel is an inferior (hummingbird ) product to do it ,a whole lot more goes into that decision . Couple that with my own experience with Humingbird and its inability to show fish where my Lowrances do and Lowrance was my choice on both boats . I am in contact with lots of folks in the walleye community here in the Midwest the opinions of those whos expertise has been proven over the years to be not driven by a paid for brand loyalty is Lowrance the hands down favorite . But that's just me. There has never been an incident on my boats of terrova to lowrance interference ,it has been reported with Humingbird . That is odd because hummingbird and minnkota are the same company. Just my opinion ,