jonnyswamp

18” will be fine. 
 
Just make sure your MFD is compatible…
 
@jonnyswamp
 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/314652280308?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=kyhgwaejqyy&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=Iv78hwFDRlC&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

glad you found the problem mate hope you can get one at a good price lucky it dident damage your other gear 

I have the gmr 18 xhd. 

Bit of an update
Unplugged the radome and checked power cable, no power
Only 4 bolts, so thought I'd remove the unit and take it to Lukes recommendation to see if they could power it up and maybe check functionality
Lifted it free of the mountings and thought. christ this is heavy
Got it on deck, turned it upside down and drained 2 gallons of rusty water through the hole on the top (that had a bit of tape over it) 
Just got it home and split it apart, it has had water in it for a good while by the looks of it
Every thing rust stained and seized
There was a plastic nut and a rubber washer floating around inside, was this once connected to a blanking plug that went through the hole in the top ?
Anyway, new 18" radome required

Bit of an update
Unplugged the radome and checked power cable, no power
Only 4 bolts, so thought I'd remove the unit and take it to Lukes recommendation to see if they could power it up and maybe check functionality
Lifted it free of the mountings and thought. christ this is heavy
Got it on deck, turned it upside down and drained 2 gallons of rusty water through the hole on the top (that had a bit of tape over it) 
Just got it home and split it apart, it has had water in it for a good while by the looks of it
Every thing rust stained and seized
There was a plastic nut and a rubber washer floating around inside, was this once connected to a blanking plug that went through the hole in the top ?
Anyway, new 18" radome required

Have you checked the Garmin Marine Network cable pins from the radar to the network ?
Are these all connected via NMEA 2000 through a powered NMEA starter kit ? Is the software up to date.

Have you checked the basics by using the menu, settings-Communications-NMEA 2000 set up. -device list. If so is the radar showing here in the device list ? 

If not showing check the starter kit fuse. Check the bus bars are all connected correctly.
I don't use radar so not sure how the menus work but is there a pause radar like there is for transducers and if so make sure its simply not paused.
Its a real pain if you have the unit setup how you like it and have to do a factory restart and make sure you have your fishing spots backed up if do a full restart. 

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/gpsmap7400-7600/EN-US/GUID-D91F8D5F-FF56-4BC0-8988-63473D5F46B0.html
 
 

They are in Penarth Marina where the old Team Marine used to be, operating out of that workshop now 

Haven't tried that yet, maybe tomorrow
Been through the alphabet of expletives though

OK, rig.
(Snood/body) 30/50lb or 50/80 lb flouro is what I am going for now 20/30 didn't seem to stand off from the body enough with bigger lures but you can use mono if you aren't a tackle tart. Even though the rig will be lost or worn out within a couple of trips I use premium swivels and hooks and the link on the bottom is unusually from decathlon and has proved its worth as both bronze and chrome don't corrode easily. 
The finished rig, not to size. 

Both upper hooks have sandeel type lures attached as below, I prefer weedless wide gape worm hooks and the main lure weedless if possible. 

I was rushing to rig the top one and it is a bit squint but a little jiggling and it will sit straight but I also prefer to rig them weedless as below by skinning the hook point so that there is less chance of snagging weed etc and it doesn't affect hooking fish. This is how straight it should sit.

Rig body length is up to you and your preference and rod length. From bottom to first dropper is 12-18" and similar above that depending on whether you get pollock on the ground or not, you could also go to 24" to the first dropper if pollock are prolific and you want the sport but I have found that on really rocky reefs when you might get 3-6' lifts and drops due to rocks the codling will come up to the top dropper and have on occasion had them take both droppers! Over flatter ground 12-18" might be fine for you. 
Generally it is better fished as close to the vertical as possible and if you don't have a big enough bottom lure then it might be worth using a weight instead. If you are plagued with smaller fish then use bigger sandeel slug lures but the little gits will probably start tail grabbing and there is the possibility that they may twist the lure or damage the head. If the head gets opened up too much just clip it off to solid plastic and use as if new, the silver lure below is close to being clipped as you can see the opaque tear in the head.

I will start another post to show how to tie the droppers.

He’s a good guy, Salvo, runs that massive lump of a charter boat out of Penarth Marina part time. 
 
Puravida in Penarth also good, they took over Ed Risby who is at CBYC. He was a Garmin and Raymarine guy. Salvo will most likely get you sorted 🙂 
I’ll check with the boss but I maybe free on weekend to have a look but I don’t know much about Garmin…. Only Lowrance/Simrad 

jonny there is a company in cardiff bay they are called marine electronics wales at https;//www.marineelectronicswales.com hope you can sort it bud

it might be a good call jonny boy plus you will get to lear all what they are saying because it will be hands on remember to remove all the panels first just incase and a extra bonus you will have more money for fuel and bait simpils

Me Tim and Phil out on Seadog - all set for a lovely day - warm sunshine and flat calm seas - could it get any better? 
it did - best days fishing for a long time!
Started off by finding mackerel on the way out - drove over a bait ball and bagged up a tough tub full of fresh mackerel - took the chance to fill the freezer too - must have had over 50 mackerel between 3 of us in 30 mins.
Off to the mark filled with optimism - now this mark throws up all sorts of fish and today didn't disappoint - 12 species and 2 PBs to the boat from the same spot. 
dropped anchor and it was fish from the off. 
Tim had a lovely red, and a good run of bream, dogs, smoothies and conger, even managed a Pollock
I had a lovely bull huss, and the usual bream, dogs and conger, 

I had a lovely little spotted ray 

followed by a huge pull down, taking line and fighting all the way to the surface, up came my PB Blonde ray - 13lb - an absolute blanket of a blonde ray! 
 
Phil was having a slower day than us two - just thornies, dogs and congers on big baits but he couldn't connect to the bream on the small stuff - while me and Tim carried on bringing them to the boat. odd. 
so phil switched back to the big baits and then he got his bream a decent size one too - on a 6.0 hook on a strip of mackerel!

as tim was dropping his bream rig down he was getting hit by mackerel right under the boat - so we had some more fun with the feathers between bites - (maybe they were sheltering under the boat - but they were literally at our feet!) 
Tim was reeling in a bream and suddenly we saw it getting followed by a tope - Tim left it in the water to see if the tope would attack it - but must have ben spooked - one hook was bitten off but not the fish.
so now came a plan - within 30 seconds i grabbed the feathers and pulled out a live mackerel to send down for the tope.... rod in the rod rest and left with the ratchet on......
in the mean time we carried on fishing -  low and behold Phil gets a bite, says it feels different (slack line, head shakes, swims uptide) - bang - Tope to the surface - sadly though it snaps off at the surface - bitten through 100lb trace. would have been his first too!

not to be outdone though - phil gets the last bite of the day and when it hits the surface i drop everything and grab the net - BASS - Phil's PB at 4lb

what a day! - 12 species (at least - may have missed a or 2)
Mackerel, Bream, pollock, Bull huss, LSD, Conger, Thornies, Spotted ray, Blonde ray, Smoothound, Tope, Red Gurnard, 
plus we took home 40 mackerel for the freezer between us - the bream that was intended for the BBQ got relegated tot he freezer as soon as the bass surfaced - dinner sorted!
home bound via the pub for a quick one and a reflection on the best days fishing this year so far!
 
PS note to self - remember to reel in the live bait before heading off to pull the anchor - we had to abort pulling the anchor as the ratchet was screaming! 🙂 
 
 
 

@Saintly Fish was kind enough to offer me a trip out on Tarlach Too today. The plan was to hit low water slack at a shallow mark near Lymington for stingrays and gilthead bream, so we set off at early o'clock to grab the tail end of the ebb.

As we headed west we were greeted by a large flock of gulls working the water dead ahead of us. It would have been rude not to stop and see if we could bust the blank early doors.

So with some feathers hastily tied on we were both soon into mackerel, and even a bonus school bass for me. With 10 or so mackerel in the bucket we headed further west and soon dropped the anchor on our mark.
Didn't take long for the bites to start. Small black bream were nibbling our worm baits but the baits lasted long enough for Neil to hook into a decent stingray. During the fight it even managed to flap clear of the water - who knew stingrays could fly??
Not content to rest on his laurels, soon after he hauls up a lovely gilthead bream which went to 2lb on the scales. I'll leave it to him to post some pics of his catches.
As the tide flooded the weed became unmanageable, so we pushed out into the navigation channel where smoothounds were the target. Skipper did good and put us on the fish.


Again, I'll leave Neil to post up some pics of his hounds, but suffice to say he caught more of them, and they were bigger! 🤣
I also managed a nice little black bream from this mark, on a 1/0 hook intended for dogfish.

As the time ticked on we decided to move closer to home and stop off at another shallow mark to see if we could find any more giltheads. I managed to find a productive method by casting sideways and letting my ragworm and ball weight trundle around in the tide. A fair-sized schoolie bass and several bream fell to this technique.

Neil managed another couple of good smoothounds here to round off the day. Six species from three marks in six hours of fishing. Quality sunshine, quality giggles and quality skippering. Got to hand it to him, @Saintly Fish did good today - thanks mate, it was a brilliant session!
 
 

Argh… 
you may get lucky 🙂 his boat will take a hell of a sea 🙂 He did well on the wrecks up the Irish Sea last weekend 🙂 
Looking at it’ll be behind you on way out and drops off later so fingers crossed for you 🙂 
if you get any mackerel, I’d love a few 😉 Rob knows where my boat is 😉 I’m down Saturday night to refuel dos Sundays adventures 🙂 
 
 

Headed into the mountains, air temp -5'c, water temp 2.5'c. Firstly I hate the cold which is the main reason for leaving the UK, however I still like the occasional reminder of how cold it can be and we aren't even in winter yet.

Target species were brown and rainbow trout which move upstream for the spawning this time of year. These fish are an introduced species first brought here by early European settlers.

It can be a busy time of year with many anglers trying their luck at the bigger up to 90cm 14kg specimens. I had decided to put the effort into hiking well upstream away from the crowds which involved quite some effort climbing some rock sections. Two other families had decided to join the party and all the youngsters were keen on heading upstream after I told them what a good session I had last year at a water hole well upstream.
 
Apart from really feeling my age on icy slippery rocks all went well and we all reached the magic spot!!!!!! I must admit feeling under pressure after talking the spot up around the campfire the evening before but the pressure soon faded away when we had a triple hookup on solid brown trout from the youngsters. I pretty much sat back and left it to them as they clocked up around 70 fish mostly in the 55-65cm size bracket. A truly magic session we will all remember, with even a large stag samba deer walking in on us and getting quite a shock.

One of the young lads had been working hard landing (netting) all the fish so had missed out on the rod action himself which made him feel disappointed, not helped by the teasing from the other kids.

Around the campfire that evening in freezing temps one of the parents was keen to do the hike, which meant the lad who missed out had his chance.

This day was even colder and my water bottle that I filled before I left camp had frozen solid before I got to the spot. My first nymph fly hit the water for a decent 60cm brown which I kept for the smoker. After that my gloves went on and I left it to the others, like I said I hate the cold!!!)
 
The young lad hooked several fish before he actually landed one but once he did there was no stopping him. At least another 50 fish were caught this day before we headed back with smiles on our faces.
 
While camping I sleep in my rooftop hardshell tent (Motop mk5 also available in the UK). This has a 12v electric blanket, led lighting and plenty of power points which are all run off my lithium battery and solar, I even have a DVD player for movies if it rains!!!!  So cold but still comfortable.
 




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again, just the wife and I, and a day where we were unsure what to do. I was not keen to fish the local wrecks (for obvious reasons), so decided that we could do with some Mackerel for making chum, and if the Mackerel were not there in numbers, then a trip out to 15 miles off Berry head to the Meatboat wreck would probably work as a plan B.
After the wife's reel seat broke when she hooked a ray on the skerries, I have treated her to a new Kenzaki super braid (12 - 20) and a Fin-nor MA12 reel, and this combo needed to be christened !
Launched at 08:30 and first stop was the Orestone and Hopes Nose. I did my usual trick of a trundle around at about 6 kts until I found some sign of life on the sounder. Then I switch the sounder over to 'livescope' and hit the Mackerel with deadly accuracy, in terms of depth and which side of the boat to fish.
I found a drift where we were constantly catching, and the size of the mackerel was good, with mostly mediums, and medium large. The wife was using a string of 5 snowbiki's on size 6 hooks, and I was using a string of 3 Hokkai's on size 1/0 hooks.
By about 11:00 am we had a good number of Mackerel, so I decided to head over to a huge mussel farm that is located quite close to us in an area known as the Livermead Roads. The mussel farm is owned by a guy I know well, who also owns the oyster farm in the estuary where I launch. Last year his lower mussels on the strings were devastated by Bream, it took him a while to work it out, but the local divers were happy to go down and find the answer. I set up an excellent drift that took us along the edge of the mussel strings, using the size 6 tinsels baited with a sliver of squid. After 2 log drifts, it was obvious that the bream had gone on holiday, so we returned to slaughtering the Mackerel shoals.
All too soon it was 12 midday and time to head in for the afternoon school run. Just as I left the back of the Orestone we were joined by a huge pod of junior dolphins who stayed with us for 4 miles at a speed of almost 18 kts, often banging into the boat, and coming clean out of the water along side.
It was a very nice day to be out there, wall to wall sunshine and a completely flat sea.
Just one pic that says it all, I had half emptied it before I remembered to take the picture, so in all we had a little over 200 Mackerel, which fills the Igloo box to the brim.
Most of these will be made into chum for next month's shark fishing, but we had Mack for evening meal, and a few of the lager fish have been filleted for consumption over the next couple of days.

I’m sorry but that’s a bit of a poor show of the MAIB…. 
 
There is loss of life, lessons can be learned I’m sure for both commercial and leisure boats. 
 
On a more human level, I’m sure it would help the family to know what happened 😞 

Another invite from my friend for an early kick off, but instead of a little mist it was full on fog with visibility from 300 down to 100m. A lovely sailing yacht, Trinovante, was just preparing to leave as we left the lock and passed us shortly after we had started our first drift on their way up to the Orkney Islands. 


Big tide meant we were drifting at 1.2 or faster which is a little fast for lures especially over the very rough ground we were over and I was having a nightmare, losing gear and time. We had a couple of fish but the lines were well angled so the lures weren't fishing properly and any droppers were liable to catch as they bumped up and over the rock scars. Mostly fresh run fish as you can see from the lovely colours. 

The fog came in quite bad as we moved north so we were puttering on at 6-10kn for safety and in an area we normally fly over we saw a good few pinnacles so we did a U and drifted over it. First drift we had one each and although the drift was slowing it was still a bit fast but the next few were much better and we really got into them with codling to 4-5lb and pollock to 6. It was nice to hit the pollock as a week ago we were on a great reef for them but they were absent. One codling came back with me as it broke its jaw during the fight so it became supper, Mediterranean style cod in Mediterranean style weather 😋

Hope to add more fishy photos later. 

I've been called worse

That doesn't sound good, hope the other person that was on board is found soon and safe 🤞

Not a disaster Ian, you both got out and snagged a few 👍
We're booked for a Skerries trip in august, but I'll be looking for an individual day before then
Ross (Spot on) does them quite often, so will probably do a couple after I get back off holiday which is the end of June

That's a busy enough sesh Neil, nice one
Never seen a quintopus before though

I got an unexpected couple of days off, so today I took advantage of the northerly winds and sunshine. Got a couple of nice Raja Clavata (thornback ray for @JonC), a couple of feisty starry hounds, so many dogs I had to start catching them by the tail to test myself. And, one for @captin slows old outlaw....