Back to School

First fish in the boat!

Yep, back to school is what I describe as the process to unlearn what is no longer valid, relearn a new system of fishing, and try to figure out what all this connectivity means between the satellites, my depth finders, GPS, trolling motor, and my entertainment center.  A smart man looks around and figures out who is best to at least help you to move forward and that guy is Bill Lundeen. I've talked about Bill many times as he's pretty sharp with the Lowrance stuff and had expressed an interest to see how the new Motorguide i5 works when networked into the HDS units.  We agreed that Sunday afternoon would be a great time for me to drive up, we'd head out of Cove to try our hand at some fishing and more importantly play around with the new electronics.  We were on the water by 2:00 and heading for a gravel hump a couple miles out.  The first thing we tried pretty simple, mark a fish then tap that mark on the screen which then pulls up a cursor on the GPS side. Pushing the command "go to the cursor" and voila, it circled back to that point.  The next thing we did was to simply set a heading, slowed the speed down to 0.7 MPH and let the motor control everything while we dragged some spinners and nightcrawlers.  We traveled in a ridiculously straight path, impressive. Once we were at the end of where we wanted to go our next experiment was to create a new route that we wanted the trolling motor to follow.  Bill created a waypoint 200 yards to the north of our current location then another one 25 yards to the east of where we were.  Naming the route Test1, we then told the motor via the HDS unit to go to the start of the route, follow the route, then stop at the end of the route. Immediately the motor headed directly north at 0.7 MPH until it reached the first waypoint we entered then did a precise hair pin turn to the right and headed back to the second waypoint which was the end of the route.  The boat traveled as though it was on rails then promptly stopped at the end.  It was amazing and the possibilities are endless.  I suspect it's simply going to take more practice to be good at it.  We did fish a couple of spots both for walleye and smallmouth bass with little to show.  Seeing the bass on the reefs was nice but they appeared not interested in what we had to offer.  I finally felt a hit yet I knew it wasn't too big and as predicted, a small rock bass.  Oh well, regardless it's still my first fish in the boat so what the heck!  Beyond that we really didn't do anything else and coupled with the fact that it was looking like rain, we headed back to the landing just in time to get the boat on the trailer before it poured.

Loon near the boat.

So, there are a few things that I need to address regarding the boat. First, my Sonic Hub disconnects from the system and my radio goes dead.  The only way to make it work was to restart the depthfinder, which is a pain if you need to do it after each time you start the engine. The second issue is the propeller that came with the boat.  Although the hole shot is amazing and the boat gets up on plane very fast, I can only get about 5000 RPM's out of the motor.  The rated full throttle range for the ideal horsepower is 5600 - 6000 RPM's.  At 5000 RPMs it indicates that the propeller has too much pitch and is overloading the engine.  I have talked to my dealer as the prop that came with the boat is a RX4 15 x 22P (4 bladed, 15" diameter x 22 inch pitch) and it looks like the same prop in a 20 inch pitch would be much better.  I am working on both issues and believe I have the first one solved by reconnecting the power cords while the second issue with the prop needs a little more patience but the dealer is working on it.  The third issue is that the boat is almost impossible to winch tight to the front roller when loading.  It is frustrating because on Sunday we had to back it into the launch to tighten it up.  It finally dawned on me that I had the same problems 14 years ago when I bought my first Ranger and was told to spray the trailer bunks with silicon to make it glide easier.  I'll be getting some spray and the next time I go fishing, before I load the bunks will get a good dose of it as I remember that it solved the problem.  I remember being warned that it is important to keep the winch on the boat until it's in the water to make sure it doesn't slide off the trailer at the wrong time. Beyond this it's just more time on the water, dang it!  Bill always complains that he attracts loons to the boat which I was curious if he meant me as well in that statement.  While experimenting with the trolling motor we had a really nice loon following us, maybe looking for an easy meal.  I took a picture with new Samsung S6 Edge, I'm pretty impressed how clear and detailed the picture is.  It's really cool seeing these birds "fly" under the water as it hung around the boat for a long time.

I am still have a lot too learn and with good reports coming out of Mille Lacs it is a great possibility we will be fishing on Saturday.  We have a upcoming trip to Lake Oahe in South Dakota in July and it would be nice to have most of these issues resolved before then.  My friend Hondro wants to meet the weekend of July 4th and there is already planning for our late September Lac Seul trip.  I told those guys that if they wanted me to bring the boat to Lac Seul they would have to wear surgical booties over their shoes before they get in my boat.  Last year I made them wipe their shoes on a rug at the dock and no feet on the gunnels as it is really sandy there.  Although I probably won't require booties it's really good to get the guys thinking early about my passion to keep the boat looking new!
I got my Sirius Radio working, I am not too impressed with how slow the weather portion of it is, and the bluetooth connection is working which allows content from my cell phone to be ran through the radio.

Networkin' with Dave (or Dave the IT Guy)

I have to admit that technology is really starting to wear me down!  My first cell phone was in 1990, what they called a bag phone.  It sat on the front floor of the car, with a rather large device stuck in the trunk and an antenna coupled through the back window.  Wow, a phone I could use in the car, just like at home, a simple 10 key number pad and a send button.  Fast forward to 2011, I have owned a Blackberry now for 2 years and trust me, I still haven't figured out how to really use it to it's greatest potential.  That will probably never happen.  Well, it's time for me to upgrade my depthfinder/gps on the back of my Ranger 620T.  Working with Bill, we have done some horse trading and I am finally ridding myself of the reliable Genetron for something a little more technical, a Lowrance HDS-10.  It came with Structure Scan/Side Imaging which can literally scan the bottom up to 500 feet either side of the boat.  Included is a down scan feature that more clearly identifies objects under the water, such as those sunken Spanish galleons in the middle of Mille Lacs.  Adding to the mix, Lowrance has a Sonic Hub made by Fusion, which is the same manufacturer of my current stereo system.  Along with my front depth finder, a HDS-5, they can all be magically hooked together via cables, software, and sweat to talk to each other.

So it goes like this........... The HDS 10 is the basic display and also serves as the main "server" in my new boat network.  The Structure Scan/side imaging module consist of a oblong shaped transducer that is feed into what appears to be an Ethernet Hub.  My HDS 5, in the front of the boat is connected to the hub via a 25 foot Ethernet cable.  From the Hub is another Ethernet cable that plugs into the HDS 10.  Now the Sonic Hub is really a NEMA2000 network device.  NEMA 2000 is a communications protocol and consists of a network tree of parallel connected devices that can communicate with the server (HDS10).  Because I have a factory glassed in, thru the hull transducer, I see that the boat had been pre wired with a NEMA 2000 based water temperature sending unit.  This makes sense as most water temperature sensing is done at the externally mounted transducer, so with a thru the hull transducer a separate temp sensor was installed.  So, I have this branch looking network assembly that has a cord to power the network, a temp sensor port, a Sonic hub port, and a cable going out to the HDS 10.  All of these cables crisscrossing my boat will allow me to switch displays on my front and back HDS units to track each other, I will be able to observe the structure scanning on both units simultaneously, as well control my stereo system via the depth finder screen.  This will allow me to change songs, channels, volume from both units, which is much better than kneeling down to adjust everything.  The unit comes with an Ipod dock and can be plugged into a Sirius Radio, which in turn can display the latest radar weather reports on the HDS10.  Uffda!

The real problem will be simply trying to learn every menu, option, configuration, setup and I am sure few thousand combinations of all you can do with the system. Just interpreting the Side Imaging displayed what it all means will be a challenge in itself. I had a tremendous amount of confidence in the Genetron as I could anchor in 20 feet of water, put a 1/8 ounce jig with a leech on, drop it off the back of the boat all while watching it fall to the bottom, move up and down, and get hit just like winter fishing with a FL20. I am sure it will take a bit of getting used to the new system and I only hope it is as good as what I am replacing. Here is a picture of what the display of the side scan looks like. Of course this technology has been the rave for a few years now, started by Bottom Line (now Humminbird), I can see it will take a lot of trips this year to finally figure how to interpret what the transducer is looking at, not that I am complaining . Sort of feels like a new episode of Sea Hunt!  This weekend has snow in the forecast for the Saturday morning, hopefully the last.  I have committed to spending both Saturday and Sunday taking a Motorcycle Riders Safety Course, a 16 hour classroom and riding skills class at a local motorcycle dealership.  I guess we are never too old to learn the right way to do things.  Next week is Easter then maybe a chance to get on the water and try my new network out, if I get it installed by then!