I'll be the dissenting opinion, I'm a huge fan of running a kicker with autopilot vs a bow mount. I will say that is for my fishing needs which are 90% trolling and 10% lings, hali and lake stuff.
A kicker on autopilot will do everything a bow mount will do except spot lock which admittedly can be dang handy a couple times a year.
It is a much simpler system and uses the kicker a guy needs anyway for trolling salt. No extra motor, batteries, stuff cluttering up the front and yet another thing for a thief to target.
It is a total gamechanger, I can say I catch more fish with an autopilot hands down. Even for lings, I am able to set my drift in wind and tide and do exactly what I want automatically and hands-free. The Garmin autopilot is the bees knees, flawless, remote control, fully integrated into my chartplotter and works amazingly well.
If you are a bass/crapie/whatever non-trolling lake stuff guy it likely would be a different answer.
For what you mentioned, I personally would be more happy with a kicker on autopilot than a bow mount.
