jigstick
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Everything posted by jigstick
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My boat is only 22.5ft, and I tow it from Barcelona on Erie up to Olcott. Fish both lakes with no problems. I do just about all my own work on the boat, except engine stuff. Ive redone electrical systems, redid plumbing, done fiberglass, installed electronics, buffed and waxed.....blah blah blah. Teaching myself everything along the way. The skills and knowledge that I have gained working on my boat myself is priceless. And I like not having to rely on the hacks that work at the local marinas. How big is your boat? Can you do any of the work youself? You must have a really big rig if you cant even tow it. Ive seen people towing 30-40fters with no problems.
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why not a fixed mount? it will be much more powerful and have better range
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Pretty sweet man. Where were you fishing for lakers on Erie? Im like the only guy at my harbor that targets them. I fish out of Barcelona. I was absolutely crushing lakers over memorial day weekend. We caught over 30 on saturday, and even more on sunday. I had some seriously vicious strikes on my dipsys.....almost as hard as a king salmon hitting. 20lbers all day long.
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Im firing up my smoker tomorrow to do some pork shoulders and brisket. Ill be using apple and hickory wood. I have some vacuum sealed salmon that I need to use up. It is filleted. But the bones and skin are still in and on. Can I smoke it as is? Do I need to brine it first? Any good recipes for smoked king salmon?
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I use Berkley Trilene 100% Flouro...12lb test on my planer rods, 14 and 17lb test on my rigger rods. I use the 17lb as my leaders for my 30lb 7strand wire dipsy rods. I get great knot strength, and the stuff is dam near invisible in the water.
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will the Evolution Sportpilot integrate with a Simrad Chartplotter? I think the Raymarine Seatalk NG networking is the same as NMEA2000.....? -
I usually run sliders on my downriggers. I seem to pick up fish on them frequently, so why not. But for the life of me I cant seem to find a good way to store them when Im not using them. Ive tried wrapping them around a water bottle, water noodle, etc. The tails dangle and it gets all bunged up. Anybody have a simple solution to this? Shoving them in my bag sucks because they always come out tangled. -
The way the wire came off the Scotty spools is as follows….We fish lakers right on the bottom, with the ball bouncing along the bottom of the lake. That quick and small lack of tension on the cable caused the wire to come off the spool, and wrap up in the mount. We lost a few balls that way. The other way it popped off was when finishing up for the day…we would reel the ball up to the boom, reach out and grab it, loosen the terrible drag on the rigger to get some slack so that we could pull the ball in, and bam, it came off the spool. Maybe my technique is wrong or something, but it shouldn't be that hard. Alls i know is that I have never had either problem with the vertical spools on the Cannons. Another thing I noticed on the horizontal Scotty spools is that the wire doesn't spool quite as nice. It seems to bunch up on the bottom of the spool. We've had kinking because of it. Im not trying to get into a pissing match. Im just expressing my experiences with both brands.
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FWIW, I hate the Scottys. My buddy had two of them on his boat. The horizontal spools suck. On more than one occasion the wire has slipped off the spool and got tangled in the mount…huge pain in the ass. Furthermore, I think the horizontal spool design is less robust over the long run. It puts more angles into the equation when dropping and retrieving balls. I think it really stresses the booms and pivot points. The Bigjons have always looked flimsy to me. I use manual Cannons STX 10s which have thick booms, and even they flex a bit when dragging 14lb balls on the bottom. But the vertical spools are super nice, and they retrieve very smooth with their gear ratio. Everyone has there own opinions. But I have used both, and I think there is no comparison. The Cannons are a much nicer design.
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I used to have all Berts rod holders on my boat. The mounts constantly loosened....especially the ones holding my dipsys. They never held angle well, always migrating over the course of the day. Ihad to resort to cranking the allen and thumb screws with a pair of channel locks and even then they still loosened . They may work for some people, but for me they didnt. The cannons have a better design and are machined much nicer too. But to each his own.
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its a gar pike -
The problem is that they are not Cannon Dual Axis Rod Holders.
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well if somebody wants mine, you can have it. just pay postage.
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Bellows jobs suck. I hate doing it. But if u take ur time and do it right...u should get 5 or more years out of them. Some **** in my marina was going around with a screw driver and poking holes in peoples bellows who had tbeir boats on trailers. What a dick. I always check mine before i launch. -
I was fishing Erie out of Barcelona. 90 - 105ft of water. Dark Purple Froggy Stinger spoons on the dipsys. Which got hammered constantly 200ft back on a 2 setting. The cowbell was green, black, and silver...with a sherbet peanut....fished right on the bottom...also got hammered. The grease trap was a "silver glow" color with a clown dot peanut...no hits at all. I don't get it.
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Ok. This thing sucks. I fished yesterday targeting lake trout. I was running two dipsys with spoons, one rigger with a cowbell / peanut, and one rigger with this grease trap. I must of caught 30 lakers over the course of 3 hours. and not a single dam fish came off of the grease trap. I ran a peanut behind it with a 24in lead. Ran it right on the bottom, a few feet up, and 15 ft up. nothing. What am I doing wrong
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i use Okuma Pro GLT dipsy rods with twillie tips. work awesome.
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well I trolled again with it this weekend. The autopilot seems to be getting better and better the more I use it. I think it has something to do with the new Evolution programming....like its learning my boats characteristics. I cant believe I wanted this long to get this. Fishing is so much more fun now. And I think in the long run it is going to save me money on gas. No more wandering all over the lake going from and back to the harbor.....just straight lines now.
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Looks like a Mercruiser Alpha 1 Gen 2 outdrive. No problem with them. Very good unit. I would change the gear lube in with 90weight Gear Lube, and service the anodes....just so you know that you are starting with a tuned up unit.
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Now it may be different as i have a Merc I/O. But my outdrive rams work on straight 30 weight oil. And any brand will work. It may be different for you though...
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Yeah I think you're right. The free play in the steering is built into the sport pilot drive. I don't even notice it with the boat running and under power. it was only really noticeable when dry docked. Here is something else that came up for me yesterday, which may or may not be a problem for you guys. When the autopilot would engage, my chart plotter / sonar would shut off. And I believe I know why. The sport pilot drive unit must pull a significant amount of amps. I originally had my chart plotter and autopilot wired to the same fuse panel. With the AP on, the voltage must have been dropping to the point that the chart plotter would turn off. I moved the chart plotter onto a different fuse panel, and now its fine. So for anybody thinking of installing one, make sure your wiring and fuse panels are up to the task. Run thick wire to carry the maximum amount of voltage possible. Today I am going to run some thicker wire, like 4g or 2g up to the one fuse panel, to see if that allows me to run both the AP and plotter off of it. I have a lot of electronics on board. The new fuse panel was running LED spreader lights, chart plotter, sonar, VHF radio, auto pilot, Fiskhawk probe, and some LED accent lights. I had to keep shutting stuff down to keep the voltage adequate for the AP. Im fairly certain with the thicker wire, I will be able to run all of this stuff off of the same Bluesea fuse panel. The current wiring was only like 10 or 8 gauge. 4 gauge will do the trick. Vetting: Mine was correcting frequently, but only turning the wheel a few inches in either direction. I wouldn't call it "constantly" correcting. I was only in 1fters with 8kt wind though. The "rudder limits" setting tells the AP how far right and left it can turn the outdrive. Default is 30 degrees. so that means the AP limits the outdrive swing to 30 degrees in either direction. Your outdrive MAY be able to turn more that. You have to play with the setting and watch the out drive to see how far in either direction it will go. By increasing the "rudder limit", it will tell the AP that it can turn the outdrive FARTHER. So in theory, I think that means it could correct course even more. Does that make sense? This is my interpretation though… The hard over time is how fast the outdrive will move left to right. I believe the lower the setting…like 5 seconds….means it turns faster. Raising the number, to like 15…means it would take longer for the outdrive to turn. How this translates into course correction….Im not sure. I think with a higher number, the drive unit will be turning MORE, but at a slower rate….so maybe overworking a bit???? Im not sure here
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Well I went and launched the boat today. Did the dockside setup and sea trial. WOW. This thing is NICE NICE NICE. Trolled me straight as a laser at 1.8-2mph. Worked wonderfully under power as well. The trickiest part of the calibration for me was setting the "hard over time" and rudder limits. I had to tinker with them until I got the perfect amount of port - starboard movement on the outdrive. But other than that…AWESOME. For you guys that have it installed, have you noticed that your voltage on dash volt gauge will jump a little bit when the autopilot is engaged? Mine does. But I think its normal. The Sportdrive must pull a decent amount of amps.
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Spina Bifida -
Here is a picture of the mounting bracket I made out of Azek. No 3.5in hole in my dash now! [/url] Heres how my dash layout turned out [/url] I looked into the slop that I got after installing the drive unit. It is coming from INSIDE the drive unit. All my woodruff keys are tight. Absolutely no slop on the steering shaft. The slop only comes when I install the new shaft coupler for the steering wheel to go back on….the part that gets screwed on with 4 bolts and an allen key. That is where my slop is. Anybody else have 1/2 on play there?
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