Video · Fishing & Trips
Shark Fishing from a Plastic Lite Skiff with an AutoBoat GPS Motor
My buddy and I take my plastic Milha Lite Skiff and my fiberglass Solo Skiff shark fishing in the Gulf, testing AutoBoat and ePropulsion along the way.
What’s in this video
Today we went shark fishing in two tiny boats. I ran my Milha Lite Skiff with a 6 hp Yamaha and the AutoBoat system on a Riptide 45 tiller motor up front. My buddy Sean from Red Dog Lures ran my fiberglass Solo Skiff with an ePropulsion motor. He actually got on it before I did, and he caught a shark on it early.
My plan was to drift baits along a mangrove line. AutoBoat held me in position the whole time, all from a remote on my hip. My favorite mode is NavPoint heading, which holds a straight line so I can run parallel to the mangroves at low speed. If there’s an obstacle I can jog left or right, or I can plot a route in the app. On a small boat I set custom gain settings so anchor mode doesn’t go full throttle and throw me out.
We caught four sharks and let them go. The AutoBoat with a 100 amp hour battery ran all day and I barely used the Yamaha. When Sean got back after buzzing around to different islands, he had only used about half of the ePropulsion battery.
Key moments
- 0:00 Heading out for sharks
- 1:20 Fishing on the light skiff
- 2:58 First catch of the day
- 3:26 Using GPS motor technology
- 5:59 Advanced motor navigation
- 8:26 Catching and releasing
- 9:55 Reviewing motor performance
Quick takeaways
- NavPoint heading holds a straight line at low speed, which works well for drifting baits along a mangrove edge.
- On a small boat, dial down AutoBoat's custom gain settings so anchor mode doesn't lurch at full throttle.
- You can have the physical remote and the phone app connected at the same time.
- AutoBoat on a 100 amp hour battery ran all day, and the ePropulsion used about half its battery running between islands.
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