I thought I'd share some photos and descriptions of my Old Town Autopilot 120 setup.

Here's the hero photo on the trailer:

Yes - that's three screens on there. But truth be told, the only time my Helix 7 is on there is when I want to run Lakemaster and SmartStrike. The only time I really do that is if it's a new lake or I'm fishing and area that's new to me. If my map study doesn't pay off, I can see where SmartStrike suggests. Running three graphs plus accessories draws a lot of power. The Garmin graphs are a UHD 93 SV on the right and a UHD2 93SV on the left. The sun visors on my UHD's are from Berley Pro. They absolutely make a huge difference out on the water, and the look cool, too!

My goal was to network them via bluetooth or Wifi but I haven't been able to get that to work. So, the newer UHD2 unit runs Livescope and the older unit handles down imaging, side imaging, and mapping. I rarely use DI and SI, so it mostly stays on fishing charts. Sometimes I run a split screen with SI and maps when I'm running to waypoints.

This photo also shows my Sniper Marine pole for FFS. I use the rod tube delete to mount it since putting it on the tracks places it too far forward for my reach. Also, the plastic Old Town tracks are kind of flimsy.

The captain's bridge is from Dugout Bait and Tackle. It doesn't have tracks. You have to drill through the metal to mount your graphs. I like this mount as opposed to the track bar mount. It's very sturdy. At first I was worried the graphs.

Speaking of power, I run three - yes three - batteries. Well, as of today I run three batteries. My motor runs of a 100AH Weize LifePo battery. In the tank well I have two battery boxes. The first is a bigger Newport box that contains another 100Ah Weize battery to run my graphs, black box, heading sensor, two red LED deck lights, my navigation lights, and a USB port. I could run all of this off of a 36Ah LifePo battery, but I like the added security of being able to swap out that second 100Ah battery if I happen to run down my trolling motor battery. I've actually done that twice now. That beats paddling this barge or asking for a tow.

The reason I now have a second battery box with an 18Ah battery is that I found that my GoPro is very sensitive when it comes to receiving the proper power, even when I edit that setting in the firmware. It used to run off of the USB port I installed in my kayak until I added more electronics. So now I run it separately on an 18Ah Lifepo in a YakPower box with an external USB port.

My crate is the 13" x 16' YakAttack Blackpack Pro . I have 6 rod holders on the BlackPack. One my kayak there are 4 built-in rod holders. But I use one for my net and one for the rod tube delete for my FFS Sniper Marine pole.

Power for my accessories and graphs is run through an 8-port YakPower hub and the controls are mounted on the my right side inside the gunnel. I know that YakPower is a bit expensive and gets mixed reviews, but so far it's been good for me.

The hub and my FFS black box are located in my hatch under the seat. There's not a lot of room in there and the molding of the hull makes it a pain, so I put a 1x3 board in there. Everything is held down with Velcro for easy removal. I did drill a hole in the top of the hatch cover to run my FFS cable and the power cable that runs to my Newport battery box in the tank well.

One thing I added for comfort was strapping a gel cushion to the bottom of my seat. With it strapped under the seat it doesn't slide around all day.

Another upgrade was changing out the power plug for the motor. The pins on the Old Town plug eventually bent and I would intermittently lose power. I was fishing a tournament on Lake Seminole on a windy day, and if you know Seminole it's almost all flooded timber, and the motor would cut out and I'd be bouncing off timber. After previously getting hung up on Timber at Lake Fork, I ditched that Seminole tournament for safety, went home, and changed the plug that I had sitting around but had not installed yet. This new plug is a twist and lock design.

One word of caution - change out the plugs AFTER your warranty expires or you will void your warranty.

Moving on to my Malone Ecolight trailer with bunks, you will see a few modifications. The first was adding a winch. This makes it a breeze to load back up on a busy ramp. The second upgrade was changing to the much larger 10" tires. The ride is a lot smoother, I get better gas mileage, and they are rated to 88 mph as opposed to the 60 mph rating of the stock tires.

The other change I made was shifting over the cross rails so I could attach my Yakima rod box. Originally, I would put that rod box on the roof of my Bronco, but there were two main issues with that. The first is that it absolutely destroyed my gas mileage. I regularly travel 120 to 600 or more miles to fish, so fuel mileage is important. The second thing is that with the rod box on top of the Bronco I would have to bring a step stool to load and unload rods, and that was just a pain.

Even with moving those cross rails, the entire width of my trailer is still behind my Bronco and not sticking out.

I know a lot of kayak trailers have rod tubes and rod boxes on crossbar rails above the kayak, but I think that's a bad idea. Why? Because if you stand up your rods that means that you have to load them on your kayak AFTER you put your kayak in the water. So, you're either tying up the ramp or you have to lug them down to the dock after you park your vehicle.

Although it's not in the photos, I do have the self draining scupper valves on the deck, in the tank well, and under my main battery box. I prefer these to the solid scupper plugs. But if you get in big waves and water is crashing over the deck, grab your pliers and pull a few of them out. They're great under normal conditions, but not when it's nautical out there and water is pouring over the bow.

The navigation light strips and the deck lights are from YakPower. I also have a YakAttack VisiPole II for my flag and white safety light.

My GoPro is mounted on a YakAttack Boomstick Pro.

My fishing net is a ForeEverlast Generation 2 floating net.

I used to strap a regular kayak paddle to my kayak, but eventually ditched that for an Attwood Emergency telescoping paddle.

I have two Ketch boards, and recently switched out the smaller, yellow Ketch Karbonate for the larger, metal Ketch X board. The Karbonate is smaller and was a pain to lay across the gunnels when it was time to measure a catch. It clips to my BlackPack when needed, but once the tournament starts it's usually sitting on my deck.

Anyway, that's the grand tour. Let me know if you have any questions other than, "Why didn't you just buy a bass boat?" 😄

You’ve come s long way from the feel free (wasn’t it?)

Nicely set up but WOW, what’s that thing weigh now?

You have more packed in that yak than I do my boat. I feel ashamed

3 hours ago, Motoboss said:

You’ve come s long way from the feel free (wasn’t it?)

Nicely set up but WOW, what’s that thing weigh now?

Hmmmm.... The 100 Ah Lifepo batteries weigh 22 pounds each. The 18Ah battery weighs about 5 pounds. The Garmins weigh just under 5 pounds, then just under another 6 pounds for the FFS system. That's all about 60 pounds. I also stow little stuff like a headlamp, spare prop, prop pins, allen wrenches, screwdriver, and of course, toilet paper. When I head out I also bring a small, 12 can cooler.

I've pared down my tackle, so let's day that with the crate that's another 20 pounds at most. The total weight capacity of the AP120 is 558 pounds, but when you subtract out the weight of the kayak and motor the usable weight is 406 pounds including me. So, I'm still definitely in the safe zone.

But I will say that I do make every effort to pare down my tackle, especially the soft plastics hat really add up the weight. For me, they can also lead to a paralysis of analysis out on the water. I also used to bring 8 or 9 rods, but now it's a maximum of 6.

My previous kayak was a Seastream Angler 120 pedal drive. I loved that thing. But it took a lot out of me in the brutal summer Georgia heat when I would pedal out 4 or 5 miles and have to get back at the end of the day.

That's a heck of a rig.

I made a slight change on my rig this afternoon by moving my captain's bridge a few more inches towards the bow to give me more deck space to stand. I may have to slightly change the angle of the Garmin's to improve the viewing angle.

But this got me thinking. I do like to stand and fish, and while my kayak is stable, as I get older my balance is not as good. When I say that my kayak is stable, under normal conditions it's not going to roll over. But when I stand it feels wobbly out there, and when I set the hook while standing I feel like I may fall overboard. Heck, I've seen videos of angler's doing just that.

So, that got me thinking. Someone should may a kayak with a foot strap on the deck, kind of like sliding your foot into a sandal. You would have that foot, say your left foot, forward on the deck under the strap and then hold your right foot back for balance. That strap holds you in when you set the hook or get rocked by waves and wakes, but would still be easy to disengage if needed.

I had thought about the possibility of mounting a crossbar just above the deck that I could slide my foot under, but that would block my pedals from steering. Yes, there are expensive stand assist bars, but I don't need help standing up and they seem flimsy to lean against and I could still fall over backwards with a big hook set. I've tried bracing the sides of my feet against the gunnels, but that's not a great solution. I still feel like I'm going to fall overboard.

I'm toying with shaving off the back half of an old Nike rubber sandal and gluing it to my deck, but I'm not sure it will hold or what would happen if I didn't like it. Aging and being balanced impaired is tough. I get jealous when I see Kristine Fisher jumping around her kayak deck or even standing on her seat and fishing.

I bought an AP 120 in January and just built my Malone Microsport Off Road trailer. I have a couple of questions for you?

How long are your bunks, mine are seven feet and I find that when unloading the kayak the front of the hull has a spot where the channels flare out that catch on the front end of the bunks. I'm thinking the only way to overcome that is to get longer bunks that extend all the way to the front of the kayak when loaded on the trailer.

The other question, if you load directly to the water doesn't your rod locker get dunked?

11 hours ago, Dens228 said:

I bought an AP 120 in January and just built my Malone Microsport Off Road trailer. I have a couple of questions for you?

How long are your bunks, mine are seven feet and I find that when unloading the kayak the front of the hull has a spot where the channels flare out that catch on the front end of the bunks. I'm thinking the only way to overcome that is to get longer bunks that extend all the way to the front of the kayak when loaded on the trailer.

The other question, if you load directly to the water doesn't your rod locker get dunked?

My bunks are the standard 6 foot bunks that came with the trailer. If you look at the photo above, they are fairly narrow. The bunks at the bow end are slightly narrower.

The bunks bend and warp, and I think that longer bunks would inevitably make it harder to load.

Occasionally my rod box gets some water in it, but it has drain holes. When I launch, the rod box is empty as I set up my full load out in the parking lot before launching.

When I get back to the dock, I quickly get the kayak on the trailer, lock my winch, and don’t unload and pack anything until I’m back in the parking lot.

Nice setup... I love my ap120 too... Best fishing kayak... If it were only a little faster... Nothing an NK motor can't correct in the future...

4 hours ago, MRQturbo said:

Nice setup... I love my ap120 too... Best fishing kayak... If it were only a little faster... Nothing an NK motor can't correct in the future...

Yes, it’s a barge out there. I haven’t pulled the trigger, but I have thought about selling my AP and getting a Native or an XTR with the new Garmin stern mount motor. I do like spot lock.

In tournament fishing we are limited to one motor, so I can’t add another to my AP.

On 4/14/2026 at 4:17 AM, Kayak Koz said:

When I say that my kayak is stable, under normal conditions it's not going to roll over. But when I stand it feels wobbly out there, and when I set the hook while standing I feel like I may fall overboard. Heck, I've seen videos of angler's doing just that.

Could you rig up some sort of outriggers? A guy that was on a now defunct fishing site fished lake michigan out of chicago in a yak with outriggers. Pretty slick and pretty stable.

@Kayak Koz

How many fully rigged combos can you put in that case?

That is an awesome rig! The only thing you are missing is an outboard motor. 😉

10 hours ago, Kev-mo said:

Could you rig up some sort of outriggers? A guy that was on a now defunct fishing site fished lake michigan out of chicago in a yak with outriggers. Pretty slick and pretty stable.

I thought about it a few times, but instead I chose to lose some weight and try and improve my balance.

There are a lot of things that become more difficult as you get older, and as I found out, one of those is balance.

For no, I wedge my feet against the gunnels. But I thought about adding some sot of foot strap. I thought about taking a rubber sandal (slide), cutting it in half by the arch of the foot, beveling it, then affixing securely it to the deck.

That would hold my foot in place, even when setting the hook. My biggest fear when standing is setting the hook or missing the hookset and then tumbling into the water.

10 hours ago, HawkeyeSmallie said:

@Kayak Koz

How many fully rigged combos can you put in that case?

My Blackpak has 6 rod holders and a clip for my Ketch board. My AP has two forward facing rod holders, but I took away one to mount my Sniper Marine FFS pole. The AP also has two rear facing rod holders, but I use one of those for my net.

I used to carry 8 or 9 rods each outing, but now I keep it at 5 or 6. That's usually 5 baitcasters and one spinning rod. But if I'm going to a lake where I plan to drop shot or finesse fish I'll bring two spinning rods. I usually run snaps on two baitcasters so I can quickly change out things like spinnerbaits, bladed jigs, and crankbaits. With the others I'll tie on things like jigs or underspins that I plan to use most of the day. It all depends upon the lake.

7 hours ago, senile1 said:

That is an awesome rig! The only thing you are missing is an outboard motor. 😉

Thanks. Tournament fishing limits us to one motor, and I prefer to have spot lock. But I'll admit I get jealous when I see those rear mount Torqeedos doubling my speed. An gas powered outboard would be insane, but I have seen people use them.