Just got a call from Bill Fowler concerning lodging. While I already made reservations at the Sunset Beach Resort, a house is just too tempting. Especially with the likes of Gregg Patterson. Called Gregg on August 7 to check about his house rental. Think he's too busy with charters.
Still home bound due to rotator cuff surgery on my left wing, I'm getting anxious to head to any water and fish. But, doing boat maintenance instead. Just got the quartz spot lights on the T (fore and aft) changed to LED. Still need to replace one of the two start batteries, grease the boat steering, and the wheel bearings.
Bill invited me to test my shoulder at Kerr and it was a great test. I only boated two of these, one on a pencil popper and one from a downline.
Got some silicone around the base of the liquid filled compass, but having trouble getting the forward screws seated. Need to redrill the holes, maybe that will solve the problem.
I want to get the Sea Pro on Lake Anna and check the electronics and other performance stuff. Blog.jimhemby.com shows a lot of great striper fishing techniques and catches. If you follow his daily journal, you can follow his change from Lowrance to Simrad and the addition of CHIRP to his arsenal to locate stripers. Check out Youtube Mike Smedley and take a look at his finding stripers with CHIRP. Mike does both inland lakes and salt and is also known as "Team Old School".
So, here's the current evolution of the my Sea Pro electronics. The Simrad on the left has a CHIRP hub and can accept the Airmar TM150M. Chirps about 95 to 150 in the specifications, but has a broader range. But, I'm finding that the HST-USBL wide angle skimmer will chirp at several custom frequencies. Seems to be more effective in shallow inland lakes. Running at 200 kHz seems best on Lake Anna. This ducer chirps about 185 to 215 kHz (a guess) when 200 is chosen. It can run as 50, 83, 200, medium chirp and high chirp. Each might work best for differing situations (species). Yes, I have a blank screen at one frequency and beautiful arches at another! It makes a difference.
The Lowrance on the right has a build in LSS gen 2 hub. The display is fabulous even with the 9. the screen shot of an underwater bridge above Stubbs Bridge on Lake Anna is awesome!
Of course interpretation of the view in the following image is a learned experience. The Airmar CHIRP TM150M ducer is being run at a custom 105 kHz and the boat was slowed from about 20 to the shown 3.4 mph to show the arches to the right of the sereen. I'll post screen shots later with the broadband ducer running at chirp 200 kHz.
Had some problems with voltage drop from the battery to the simulatneous operation of both units. The Simrad will tolerate a voltage of 9-31 volts. The Lowrance will only tolerate 10.8 to 17 volts. Pretty easy with full load of electronics on the battery system to have a voltage drop to 10.8 volts and risk black out of the Lowrance screen. Pete D. recommended a voltage regulator that will convert 9-24 volts to 12.0 volts. Got it installed and it does the job!
Chirp and LSS can't be run simultaneously on the Simrad under some frequencies as the LSS shows "paused", but with two heads, I can run Chirp on the Simrad and LSS on the Lowrance and get er done. Having both on the same display makes it easier to make screen shots and correlate the sonar and structure images. Pretty important for interpretation. As of 9/25/14, the latest update by Simrad corrected the "paused" problem when Chirp and Structure are shown in a split screen on the Simrad.
Think the Sea Pro electronics are ready for the Kiptopeke COWs encounter. Will the COWs be there this year?
