Watch it work

Videos and gallery

Setup, pairing, installation and the pole doing its job on the water. If there is something you want to see before you buy, ask and we will film it.

Walkthrough, setup and pairing

First Mate XT walkthrough: mounts, controls, speed and battery

Matt walks the whole pole in one take: fitting your transducer, setting the telescoping depth, the variable speed dial, the foot pedal and key fobs, rotation past 360 degrees, mounting options and the adapter plate, the quick-stow lever, the battery pack and the swappable power head.

Programming the foot control

Your pedal and fobs are paired at the shop before they ship, so this is only needed if you add a control later or want to re-pair one. Walk through it once and it takes a minute.

Customer install: XT on a Minn Kota Ultrex

Chizta X fits the XT to a Minn Kota Ultrex using our Ultrex bracket kit, start to finish, filmed on the boat ahead of a derby. Nine minutes, and a good look at how the pole sits once it is on.

Using it on the water

Customer review: the XT from install to on the water

Wisconsin angler RnR Outdoors fished manual poles for years before trying the XT. Twenty-three minutes on installation, the wireless remote, build quality, and whether it actually makes staying on fish easier, pros and cons included. More from RnR Outdoors on YouTube.

Video coming soon

The pole in action

Screen and pedal together, so you can see what a slow sweep actually looks like on live sonar and why the dead stop matters.

Gallery

XT poles on real boats

Customer rigs and shop builds. For the full set, with the boat, trolling motor and mount listed for each one, see the Customer installs page.

A man in sunglasses and a cap kneels on a boat holding a large fish with orange fins, with a calm lake and tree-lined shore in the background on a sunny day.
A person stands on a fishing boat equipped with sonar and navigation devices, including a Garmin unit and a mounted screen displaying sonar data, on a calm lake surrounded by trees.
A person in fishing gear stands on a boat holding a fishing rod over a lake, with electronic equipment on the boat and cabins and trees visible along the shoreline under a clear blue sky.
A person stands on a boat using the Universal Transducer Pole Mount with a fish finder, displaying sonar data, as trees and cabins line the far side of the lake under a clear sky.
A view from a boat on a lake under a clear blue sky, with fishing gear and a Universal Transducer Pole Mount at the boat’s edge beside a Mercury outboard motor. Forested shoreline is visible in the background.
A close-up of a mounted trolling motor and electronic equipment on the deck of a fishing boat, with calm water and a clear blue sky in the background.
XT pole on the ice tripod with the transducer down the hole
First Mate XT pole running a Garmin live sonar unit on the bow
Two XT poles on the bench in the First Mate shop next to a Lowrance Ghost trolling motor

Send us your rig

Running an XT? Send a photo and we will add it here. It genuinely helps the next person work out how the pole fits their boat, and we would rather show real installs than staged ones.