The motorized Livescope and live imaging transducer mount from Rite-Hite called the Turret attaches to your trolling motor and controls your live sonar viewing with foot controls or remote control independent of your trolling motor. So you are then able to anchor lock with your smart trolling motor and still pan around and look for fish, cover and your next precision cast to make the perfect presentation. Here is a lot more about my 6 month experience with the Rite Hite Turret.
Independent Directional Arrow
The arrow on top of the unit is easy to see. I have heard some night fishermen have been painting the arrow with glow paint so they can use it night fishing too. Smart idea made possible with this unique Livescope transducer mount.
Mounts to existing trolling motor or side of boat
The Rite-Hite Turret kit came with the mount and longer bolts to replace your factory ones to give you a rock solid connection to your trolling motor with a clean and seamless install.
Independent boat control and fish probing ability
What I would tell anglers is if your a person that often has to setup one direction in the wind and fish another direction, you will like the Turret. If you use Anchor Lock or Spot Lock a lot on your smart trolling motor, you will like the Turret. If your an angler who stays on high always moving with the trolling motor and want to quickly feather around all the time while you fish, then you will probably want to keep the Livescope Transducer on the shaft of your trolling motor.
I know a lot of crappie fishermen who have loved going to these independent mounts, and this Rite-Hite Turret is a great motorized option at a very competitive price. Plus the folks at Rite Hite are tremendous to work with because they are anglers and develop these things to help their own fishing as well as their fishing friends.
Unique Livescope Transducer Mount
The Rite-Hite Turret offers a unique alternative to mounting a Livescope or other live imaging transducer directly to your trolling motor shaft. If you’ve ever fished in the wind or you just like to use your trolling motor’s anchor locking feature, then you know your trolling motor is often pointed in a direction other than the fish. So if you want to scan around and find where to cast to the fish with real time sonar, you have to move the trolling motor head in between holding your boat in place.
A Rite-Hite Turret offers a way to be able to control the boat and look around for fish near you independently of one another. It’s simply a motor and a shaft mounted to the front of your trolling motor using the existing bolts and bracket to mount your transducer on its own shaft.
Can Adjust on the fly for Perspective Mode
I have been helping Rite-Hite by testing some new mounts on the end of the Turret so that you can also switch between Down, Forward and Perspective easily with one simple quick change mount. It’s a slick idea that they are perfecting to make it a lot easier on anglers.
Water sealed motor
Rite-Hite has been machining products for the marine and fishing industry for more than 50 years. So this is the culmination of years of expertise in improving anglers’ fishing experiences by coming up with solutions to common fishing problems and headaches.
The Turret motor is water sealed and manufactured in Missouri. The stainless steel shaft is solid, and you don’t have to worry about your transducer on this mount. I mounted mine to the underside of my Garmin Force trolling motor to review. It’s a rock-solid mount with a lot of flexibility.
They are now offering the motor in 3 and 5 mph motors. I run the 3 mph motor. and it can take a bit to pan from one side of the boat to the other, but I get extremely fine tuning when I’m trying to line up the exact cast for a specific fish on cover. With the 5 mph motor you can zip back and forth quickly but you will have to get good with your feathering to give you a good lock on the fish you want to cast to.
Controlled by foot pedal
The foot pedal control has been my chosen way to control the Rite-Hite Turret. There is also a remote control option. But I have adopted sitting on my butt seat and running a trolling motor with one foot and the Turret with the other. Then if I Anchor Lock, I will just have the turret to pan around and stay on my jig, the fish, the cover and whatever else is around me that I want to look at while anchor locked in place.
If you like to scan quickly back and forth a lot while you fish with Livescope, get the 5 mph motor. If you like to get precise with exact presentations to a fish on a piece of cover, get the slower 3 mph motor.
I’ve caught hundreds of fish with it
I have caught hundreds of crappie and a bunch of bass with my Turret since June 2020. I went and fished with James Watson and Stacey King and they raved about their Rite-Hite Turrets. I have used it on Minn Kota and Garmin trolling motors. And I have seen the side mount one in action and been through the kit for install which is very straight forward and secure with a quick disconnect.
Here’s a video of Stacey and I fishing together this summer.
King is a big proponent of using the Turret for bass fishing, and he showed me how powerful it was to Spot Lock in current with his Minn Kota Ultrex. He panned around to make the perfect cast on a school of fish up current from us using his Turret to pinpoint how they were holding just outside the current. We stayed directly on schools like that, just out of the current, all day long while spot locked in the current.
Since then I have boated hundreds of crappie and bass on Kentucky, Barkley and other lakes with my Turret. I’ve caught hundreds of white bass, yellow bass, bluegill and even some catfish panning around with my Turret.
They even offer an epoxy kit to mount one to the side of your boat with a quick release mount. Check out the video of it here.
