JDP

Well, until today I haven’t been out at sea since the middle of August. The weather (mainly) and work (occasionally) had conspired to keep me landlocked with no chance of pestering, let alone catching, any fish.
At long last everything went to plan and I got out of Littlehampton on this mornings flooding tide.
By 8.45am I was four miles off in 16m of water with the pick down on some mixed ground.
Unfortunately no specimen fish took a liking to my lovely squid and lug baits though I did manage 15 nice (over 1.5lb) whiting a 4lb pollack and some straps. 
Most importantly the boat,engine and trailer all worked perfectly and I was able to enjoy a much needed day at sea.
Hopefully we will get a spell of settled weather soon so I can get out and play again.
 

Metres. Lowrance. Image at below planing below.

And a side scan of the same wreck at low speed.

Unfortunately I can't put my hands on screen shots from my main computer when I was using my Simrad but these are some shallow soundings to around 30m from the old lowrance which wasn't as good as the Simrad in my opinion.

These have been greatly reduced in size to post on here, so lacking some detail. The small fish which Ive put a red circle around are about 4ins in size. The shallow water image shows the ripples on the sand and some of the rocks show deep cracks, which helps me find great spots to free dive for lobsters. That transducer on 455khz was pretty good up to 70m in depth.

These screen shots were early days of getting to know side scan at the time. By tweaking the brightness and contrast more than in these images you can really make the picture pop and see fish better.

People will say this gear is no good in rough weather but thats simply because they don't work around the conditions. If you try sides scan heading into big seas or side on, the results will be poor but if you scan running with the wave direction its still possible to get good results. Its simply changing the approach to an area to get a better image. 

I do have the gain up high in these images as I liked seeing my soft plastics and micro jigs on the screen and was willing to put up with how this looks to be able to see them.

Because I scan at depths around 100-140m the Garmin gt51 allows for a lower frequency of 260. This has drawbacks though, so for me its just, for finding ground or big schools of baitfish which are normally mackerel like the ones we get in the UK. Also the more depth you go the wider the image will be, so trying to view 200m each side even on my 12ins hd screen can be hard to make make out.
    
I had best results with mine through hull on one of the boats I owned a while back. Having them transom mounted will often pick up part of the outboard or sterndrive leg. I had to trim my engine up quite high when scanning to avoid this. 

Yes thats what I would consider shallow, its not unit I go deeper than 300m that I consider using the deep drop electric reels.
There are things I really like about the Simrad gear but its two of the 16in screens and one 12 that have put me off them a bit. It might of been fixed on the 16's but both the ones Ive used have been very temperamental in regards to the touch screens, as in not responding. Another issue which I've even had in the smaller ones is how they shut down so often when you start pushing boats hard into big seas. This might be a safety feature to protect the units but Ive had it happen in four different boats. I do like the sonar black screen option which really makes any fish big or small stand out well. The colour palettes on the garmins don't seem to offer black. Like you say, changing over can be costly but if people can see the gear you own working on the boat would help with re-selling it on. I do have two 24in Simrads I'm selfing for a friend. One is new in box and the other has some issues, hence the new one under warranty. However he decided to move away from Simrad to Garmin. Aus price is $12000 neg for the two which is half price on new. 

You mention the Raymarine which is the only unit I've not had any experience using, they just don't seem popular with the fishing community as much here, yes sailing boat users seem to like them. A good friend back in the UK uses high end Raymarine and has for quite sometime. He might actually be someone you are familiar with as you both have similar target species. He fishes from the IOW from his Lochin out of Bembridge. Most of our marine rescue vessels got a deal to change over to Raymarine but these are used pretty much as plotters only as we don't do underwater rescue so sonar isn't so important.

Realistically the tech hasn't changed that much, simply small improvements which often take more user skill to actually use. Yes live-scope has improved but you really need flat conditions and be prepared to constantly stare at a screen most of the day. In saying that, being able to see a fish, tell what it is and how big it is, then put a lure right in front of it is pretty exciting to watch.

The Garmin 8400 series that I use have now been around for quite a few years. I like the way I can integrate other items such as Garmin in reach, phones, Fusion stereo and electric motors etc. The best thing for me is the fact that our coast is so big that much of it isn't surveyed, meaning reveal, G3 vision and Navionics charts aren't always useful. Being able to build my own charts and colour code each 30cm change in depth allows me to build my own charts and quickly understand the underwater terrain. I can have endless custom made charts from shallow water river systems to deeper water beyond the continental shelf, much of which I do cursing at around 20kts. Most people though won't even know their electronics are able to do this. Quickdraw has been around for many years with most manufacturers, it would be interesting to know how many use it that have it, also how many share theirs or download other peoples. Ive downloaded quick draw charts from online for river systems Im heading to for the first time.

There was 4 of us onboard, will do close to 40 knots wot i reckon
 

Honda 175

Today is Cyber Monday sales, the BBQ is still $899 though its now reduced form $1199. Now Im tempted .

Just a couple of piccys, will take some more next time we’re out. The helm one was taken at 27+ knots at 3600 revs. Well impressed so far but will take a few trips to get her how we want her. 

Ok…
If I was to stick to Simrad I could go single 16in to go with existing 7inch as well or 2 x 12in…. 
there is a chance I may move over to another brand and that would be 19 inch high resolution screen with a 12in low res for radar… but that’s undergoing discussion. Sadly the cost of moving over entirely to Raymarine or Garmin is not going to work due to the radar and backbone costs
the research continues…. Still need to work out to how to best fit in all on the helm 😬😬

Deepest that I am going to find is almost 300ft, but that is 30 miles out. Mostly I fish in 150 - 20Oft. The absolute deepest we are likely to encounter is Hurd’s Deep, just off the channel islands where it is 550ft, however, that would be a 65 mile steam for me.

There is some confusion here over company names.
Navico is owned by the Brunswick Group and have the Simrad and Lowrance brands.
Navionics, who were the marine chart folk, is owned by Garmin, who also own the Fusion brand. Garmin bought Navionics in 2017.

After 30+years of lowrance and Simrad products (top of their lines) I moved over to Garmin simply because of poor reliability issues and poor customer service from the Navico group. I do still use some eveo 3 16 and 12 ins units on a few boats I skipper, however the one commercial boat I use is on its third replacement. Often issues occur after firmware updates which I must admit can be frustrating even on my Garmin's. My Gamins are the 8412 and 8410 which have glass touch screens, which if broken they become a throw away item, yes I broke one. My daughter also runs Garmin in her own boat and both of the game fishing boats she skippers also have full Garmin suites also, as do many of the game fishing boats do here these days.

With any head unit you intend to find fish with, the more resolution the screen packs the better, especially in deeper water. Even though Ive dropped a fair amount of money into my full garmin outfits with the three transducers Im running, if I had to choose just one item I enjoy using the most, its the little Garmin 67i hand held. The 67i paid for itself in the first two trips commercialy fishing and the fact they are such a useful safety item makes mine the best gadget I own.

To be fair all manufacturers produce some pretty good tec for fishinding, so you won't go wrong for the UK shallow water fishing with any of them. Transducers are a pretty important thing to get right also. Its like buying a $10,000 camera body and sticking a $50 lens on it, if you don't match with a decent transducer, what you see on the head unit can be let down.

The biggest failures with sounders is the fact most people don't take the time to learn how to use them properly for the styles of fishing or work they use them for.

Coz he’s a posh git 🤣

Late to the party I am.... 
Great days fishing aboard odyssey, making the most of poor conditions. 
Leos PB was a cracking 5lb Ballan Wrasse.. easily fish if the day! 
 

 

I have the outfits in my possession now, a couple of 80w's two 50w, a Talica 50 and a Talica 25 on T curves or custom broadbill rods. Ive also looked into posting to the UK which probably isn't an option as its so high, not to mention the import duties you get hit with. I haven't been able to contact the people who are heading over around xmas, they aren't fishing people, just other family friends over to visit their kids who are here on working holidays. 
Prices aren't sorted yet as he's bringing more items for me to sell for him tomorrow. 
The 80w reels are pretty huge and I believe around the $1200 on the rods, with the rods being more expensive than the reels in some of these setups. The Talica 50 is a nice light outfit to handle, something I would of been interested in myself only Im not as silly as I used to be battling big fish for long periods!!!!
Not sure if its worth you asking on the other site if there is anyone travelling here or if you know of anyone. A Tiagra 50w with a rod would set you back about 500 quid. 

Will get around to photographing them soon, a bit busy on various other projects at the moment.

Thought I’d better test the electrics after fitting a lithium battery to the boat to run the electric motor. Ended up forgetting the remote for the minn kota so didn’t get to test that offshore. 
 
The dcdc charger worked fine from the starter battery but the interference on the new plotter sonar was very bad for some reason. 
 
Humpbacks, dolphins and yellowfin tuna were smashing the surface. Several boats were getting into the tuna, which I’ll leave to the young and foolish!!!!!!
My son decided to join me been as it was just a quick run. We had 6 fish for 6 drops using one small soft plastic. Lost one fish to a little mako. 



 

 


 

 

Will get around to photographing them soon, a bit busy on various other projects at the moment.

The tuna season will close in a few weeks so I’m already planning on 2024 so if you could keep me in mind that’d be awesome 🙂 
Hereford is only 1 hour away so pretty close really 🙂 Unless I can convince Emma that I need a buisness trip to Australia to collect some fishing gear 🤔😁😁😁😁

I will keep you in mind once I know exactly what he wants to sell as I also have some friends heading over around the new year from Hereford, so not far if they were able to take one back with them.

I will keep you in mind once I know exactly what he wants to sell as I also have some friends heading over around the new year from Hereford, so not far if they were able to take one back with them.

Happily have a Tiagra as well 🙂 They are in short supply in U.K. Shimano had supply chain issues so took a long time to get stock and forgot about adding them to the list 🤣 80W is fine too just usually more ££££ and being the poor Welshman I have shallow pockets!

So me and the wife have flown across the pond to see an old school friend who lives in Tallahassee Florida via New Orleans. He’s also a keen angler so he organised a fishing trip.  We’ve travelled from Tallahassee to a small town called Apalachicola for a few days and yesterday we went out with captain John Layne from JB charters and fished the St.Vincent sound targeting red drum  It was a bit overcast but flat Calm, fishing was a bit slow so we tried a few different marks caching small red drum, pin fish and cat fish Tim catching most of them,  fishing in about 2 ft of water using light tackle. Then Tim caught a lively 10lb red drum which gave an hell of a fight and went back as it was a breeding size fish. I still continued with the small fish. The time to pack up came and went as John wanted me to catch a decent fish. Then on my last cast my reel screened off and after a very tiring 15 minute battle (these fish fight hard) John netted a 30lb red drum.  
when we came back John took us back to his house where he prepped the fish and which we could keep and we took to a local resteraunt. 
  He also run us back to the hotel in his rock crawler 4wd, these Americans like their toys. 
 The boat was pretty awesome, a centre console design powered by a 250 Yamaha which did over 60 knots. What was interesting is that it didn’t have an anchor, on the bow is an electric trolling motor which keeps the boat in position by gps, on the aft they have “power poles”which in shallow water are deployed by a motor and extend down into the mud to hold the boat. 
  Fantastic days fishing with an old mate that I don’t see enough of and a brilliant skipper.