Do you prefer spot lock or shallow water anchors

[dwtaylor]

This year? Poles hands down. I have had a pretty good year fishing so far focusing on shallower water.

I don't have spot lock yet, but I do have a few situations fishing offshore and in current where it would be nice.

[Fx20 2011]

In a perfect world both. If I could only get one then I would pick spot lock.

[Mechanic Bob]

Each has their use. In the River, yes spot lock. In skinny water, the Anchors. I guess you have to weigh your majority of the fishing conditions.
If you typically fish deeper than 6' of water, I would say Spot lock.

[towboaterpete]

I have both on my Ranger Z521 L. The spotlok doesn’t really work in areas that don’t have current or wind. I love it on main lake but shallow water anchor works best in back of bay’s where you need stealth.

[Wendy lou]

They are each a specialized tool

deep water I prefer spot lock (obviously)

shallow? I use poles, especially on windy days

when I am pitching buck brush or cypress I’ll anchor pole with stern to the wind. I can dissect every piece of cover, pick up poles, move 25 feet, re anchor

during spawn I can anchor and not have trolling motor stirrup silt or spook fish

[PumaDave]

Both! Spotlock for fishing deeper than my 10' poles will hold and for when I catch a fish deep. Poles for shallow grass and beds,

[Capw]

Got to have both.

[Rangerdeepv]

Both. The Power poles work great when loading or unloading boat from trailer and in weeds. The spot lock makes fishing spots on windy days so much easier.

[WI-Bassin]

I use my anchors a ton and couldn't go without them. I also have been using spot lock more and more too. I would be hard pressed to give up one or the other. If I had to choose I think I'd keep the anchors..

[Arley]

Spot lock deep. Poles shallow. Spot lock will blow out shallow bottoms and spook fish, generally not good for bed fishing.

X2

[Sylvanboat]

I remember reading that spot lock can spook fish in shallow water. I don’t know if that is true.

[phelptwan]

Thanks, found a few. I'll try this out and report back. I'm fishing a river system tonight, so should be a good test.

Forgot to update this, turns out there's no way to make this change without one of the Bluetooth Remotes. I don't have one unfortunately. Anybody in SW Michigan wanna let me borrow one for an evening?

[OverTimeAgain]

Ive had my ultrex for 4yrs and my poles for 1 year...


I'd give up my ultrex for poles, but spotlock would be greatly missed.


Also worth mentioning that I got livescope mounted to ultrex, so if I'm fishing deep I am rarely spot locked so I can utilize livescope.

[Thorny]

Going to come at this with a different approach.

When I bought my boat it came with an Ultrex and one Power Pole. In the Alabama lakes I fish, I never really used the pole, as the water was too deep where the boat was while I was casting to shallow water. When one of the oil lines busted, I just took the whole thing off and haven't missed it. If I were living in Florida where I grew up, I can see the attraction for them, as the lakes are very different.

However, on one trip I was on a friend's boat, and he had a Fortrex. My goodness the difference in operating that versus my Ultrex. First of all, the Fortrex always reverted back to its own resting place; before you hit the button, you had to make sure it was aimed the direction you wanted. Not the Ultrex; it stays in the rudder direction you set it until you steer again. That alone made the Fortrex much more of a pain to operate than the Ultrex. Additionally, I can set the Ultrex at very slow speed and just turn on the thrust, paying attention to steer it every so often. I can even set it to follow one particular heading (though, it does drift at very slow speeds, so I don't do that a lot.) I don't fish deep a lot, so spot lock isn't used often (and I have noticed the "make sure you are already stopped" phenomenon.) I can even put the remote in my pocket; just in case I fall off, I can steer the boat back to me (I have literally never done this, but I keep thinking it's a good idea.)

Just the heading control and constant thrust are enough for me to choose to have an Ultrex on any boat I may have in the future. I have enough of a learning curve handling being a new boater and tournament fisherman to deal with the hassle I encountered with the Fortrex.

Get an Ultrex (or other comparable model.) Then decide if you want the poles.

[RFSims]

I have a Ghost and a 10' Tallon. If I had to give up one it would be the Talon.

[n_gong]

There's a time and place for each one. I use both, depends on how deep I'm fishing at the moment.

[Thamelau]

IMO spot lock is more versatile. The only situation I would imagine that poles would be preferred is if you only fish less than 6' of water all the time. I love my pole, but I fish everywhere from 1' to 25' and I can use spot lock in all of those scenarios (keeping in mind what the trolling motor will do in shallow water to make sure I don't blow out spots), but only use poles in the shallow stuff.

[ssmithboats]

if you have to choose one or the other a spotlock tm is the way to go poles cant hold you in water that is deeper than 10 ft even with 10 ft poles but if you have the coin you can look good at the weighin when you roll up an put them down to par your but at the ramp.

[KandKKustomz]

2 different tools in the tool box , if your a serious tournament fisherman I feel important to have both.

[Diamond56]

Biggest thing is to make you you are facing upwind / upcurrent before hitting the button.

It also helps to make sure the boat has completely stopped before hitting the button (if the wind or current is not too strong).