Undergoing Electro Shock Therapy

LISTEN TO THE STORY:

AFTER SPENDING 14 YEARS fishing from the same Glacier Bay 22, I finally (finally!) bought a new boat this season, a Caymas 26 HB. Naturally, this meant getting a completely new marine electronics suite. And despite being immersed in the marine industry and constantly exposed to the latest and greatest fishfinders, chartplotters, and radar, what happened next utterly shocked me: the electronics upgrade literally changed the way I fish.

Generally speaking, when new electronics get introduced to the marketplace I’ll get an initial viewing at one of the major boat shows, fishing events, or press conferences. Then through the course of the next year, that same gear tends to pop up on new boats I’m testing or fishing from for press-related fishing trips, and I’ll get some on-the-water experience with it. The unit on my own personal boat, however, was a decade old. As we all know, in the world of electronics that made it utterly ancient.

What I discovered after fishing the new boat for a couple of months is that using these systems when you’re a passenger on a boat is simply nothing like using them as you captain the boat yourself. Case in point: the Caymas is rigged with a Humminbird Apex 16 MEGA SI chartplotter/fishfinder. I’ve been on dozens of boats rigged with Humminbird’s MEGA side-imaging, and always appreciated its utility. But now I have to admit that those days spent looking over the captain’s shoulder at the marks off to each side didn’t tell the whole story. Unlike the old-tech side-scan I’d been using for years, I’ve found that I can check out structure I know sometimes holds fish, with the intent of finding out if fish are there or not at the moment — the returns are that much clearer and more accurate. Now I can idle through open water and look at a school of bait from both above and below at the same time and say with confidence whether or not there are predators on the periphery.

Basically, once I’d learned the basics of how to operate the system, I began wasting a heck of a lot less time flailing in barren water. Previously I was guessing whether fish were present or not, now I know for sure in short order. And when I see that fish are present but I’m not getting bites, I know to start changing colors, lure types, and retrieve styles, and that I should stick around until I can figure out just what the fish want. When I’m Spot-Locked in a position where fish are on the move, I know if anything passes by within casting distance and which direction to let the lures fly. And when I’m using the meter to look for fish at longer distances in deeper water, I know when to pull a 90-degree turn and how far to go before stopping to vertically jig over them.

The difference in fish-finding abilities is huge, but it’s not the only thing that improved with the upgrade. On my old system, when I wanted to pull up the radar I had to split screens (and thereby reduce size and visible detail levels) or toggle between the chart plotter and the radar in order to navigate through the fog or darkness. Now, the radar is overlaid directly onto the chartplotter screen. On my old system I had an 11” LCD and found it necessary to reach for my glasses in order to pick out small numbers or markings on the chart. With the 16” Apex, I can leave those glasses in the glovebox. (Note than at a 16:9 aspect ratio an 11” LCD screen has 51.7 square inches of space while a 16” screen has 104.9 square inches — so it’s actually close to twice the size). And on my old system I sure as heck couldn’t tap the screen on an intriguing looking mark, then swipe to tell the trolling motor to drive to it.

If you’ve read Texas Fish & Game for years and years, you’ve heard me proselytize before about regularly upgrading your electronics. I usually say that at least every five or so years it’s worth doing. All this time I thought I knew what I was missing out on and failed to heed my own advice because, well, I’m cheap. Now I know better. And for anyone who is comfortable with their 10-year-old electronics, remember this: you may have seen newer gear in action on someone else’s boat and think you know just what sort of advantages it will or will not give you. But unless and until you captain that boat day in and day out for a month or two, you won’t really know what advantages you’re ceding. And by the time 2028 rolls around, you can bet that I’ll bite the bullet and upgrade my own electronics again.

Skinflint Red Alert: You say modern marine electronics are just too dang expensive for regular upgrading? Look up the numbers, and you’ll find that most units of equal LCD size carry a price tag that’s very close to the MSRP you would have seen a decade ago. That makes it seem like you’re getting all the new tech for about the same cost. But when you figure in the effect of inflation, it turns out that modern units are generally 30- to 40-percent less costly than they were a decade ago.

Email Lenny Rudow at ContactUs@fishgame.com

< PREV

Return to CONTENTS Page

NEXT >