akaShag

17 hours ago, Fisherman said:

Remember when you're in the middle of butt fart nowhere, you turn the key and hear in a weakening tone, No no no no, click, click, lol.

From personal experience being stranded more than once by equipment issues, a good battery is very cheap insurance.

12 minutes ago, porkpie said:

Hold down on the N button until the circle goes away.  Otherwise the motor will jog and occasionally steer in another direction.

Is that with the remote?  I have not used it yet, still trying to figure out the foot pedal...

5 minutes ago, Freshtrax said:

Did you get ipiot?  Assuming you did.   I generaly use mine in auto pilot mode  where it will maintain a heading  helps cut down on the fiddling with the footpedal when working a section of shorline I find the standard a.p.  works better than the advanced for this. 

Indeed I do, and thanks for this idea.  Some of the shorelines I fish are pretty straight and I think this will work.  Some are pretty irregular.  But yes, anything that keeps my eye on my line is a great idea.

Doug

1 hour ago, DanD said:

It could also double as a heater for the camp????

Maybe the front porch............

I might be able to make that Masterbuilt propane smoker work for me after all..........right now it is just a decoration.

37 minutes ago, AKRISONER said:

You will learn to use the pedal, do not give up on it.

eventually it will become such an extension of your body that the speed of the terrova electric steering won’t be fast enough for you. Well that is unless you experience the feeling of a “cable steer feel” motor like a Garmin force. Once you go with that style you can never go back IMO.

 

 

Yes, my old foot pedal was completely "an extension of my body" and maybe this one will eventually be that as well.  But this electric will be the last one I buy, unless I have a catastrophic failure/accident with it.  Same for the boat, motor, graph, etc, this rig should do me until I hang up my fishing gear.  And hopefully that will be many a year from now!

So, on day 32 of bass season (yesterday) I finally got out for bass for the first time this year.  A BC trip, and then covid, played hell with the first 31 days....

I love my new Alumacraft, I love my Yamaha, and I am happy I decided to sell my old boat and buy a new rig.  The Terrova motor has plenty of power for my needs, and the deploy/stow assist gizmo is a back saver for sure.  The foot pedal, however, is not at all intuitive.  Press down at the toe, it turns the head right, down on the heel turns it left.  More pressure is needed on the heel than the toe.  The "gas pedal" is top left and fairly small.  So pretty near every time I just wanted power, the motor head would turn to the right and I might or not get power.  No question of watching where I am fishing and just using the pedal by feel (as in my old boat).  I have to LOOK AT the pedal every single time, and ignore my line.  Much of my fishing is watching my line for any signs of a bite, since most bass takes are pretty subtle (on jigs, plastic worms, etc which I use 95% of the time) so I probably missed some fish because of farting around with the foot pedal.

And what about that graph, to get back on topic.........it seems to work just fine but I definitely need more time playing with it to get the best use out of it.  And it is mounted at the stern of my tiller boat, not at the bow where I spent most of my time yesterday morning.

And I landed nine bass, all largemouth, in a bit less than 3 hours, so the fishing was pretty decent too!

Thanks for all the advice, folks, it is much appreciated!
 

58 minutes ago, woodenboater said:

I had a needle valve installed to get finer control and lower temps.

How did you do this?  I saw Dan D's work-around with the second hose/regulator.  Is your needle valve installed on the smoker regulator/hose somehow?

5 minutes ago, BillM said:

You can power the unit up without being in the water, once it's on hit the power button, scroll up to 'sonar' and make sure it's off.  Then you can mess around with the unit without worrying about your transducer heating up from being out of the water.    This way you can test everything beforehand. 

I REALLY appreciate this advice, and THANKS so much!

18 hours ago, AKRISONER said:

The card will actually make an audible click noise when it gets pushed into the slot. Don’t push too hard, just nice enough to feel and hear that little click.

My wife can hear a mouse fart.  I can hear jet engines and 12 gauge shells firing perfectly fine.  So the "CLICK" probably happened, but I certainly did not hear it.  But (using the cheaters) I could see that it stuck where it was supposed to stick.  I think.

We'll see tomorrow if this gizmo works like it is designed to do...........please wish me luck!

Doug

21 hours ago, BillM said:

Goes in this way...     

 

OK I put on the cheaters, got the itty bitty disk out of the SD card, and successfully seated it in the unit.  I think!

When I wore a younger man's clothes I could tie a #16 hook onto 2 lb test without glasses...................🙄

Thanks again Bill, that was MOST useful!

Doug

17 hours ago, DaddyMac said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8O5UoM4o0s

I found this video very helpful when setting up my Helix for optimal performance.  I use it for mostly lake trout fishing but I'm sure it could help in any scenario.

Good luck.

Mac

We had a saying in my old work place, TMFI.  Too Much "freakin" information........  I will have to look at that video another ten times to absorb all of it.  Thanks!

9 minutes ago, AKRISONER said:

to remove you will once again push on the card to hear that click and it will release the card from the slot.

Thanks again for good advice!  I was wondering if I would ever have to remove the card once I get it in there.  Why would one need to remove it?

Doug

THANKS!!!

24 minutes ago, porkpie said:

Half of my trail cams use micro SD

I learn something new here just about every time I log in!  I have a dozen trail cams, some of which I leave up year round, and I have had another 8 or maybe 10 over the years.  None of them used the micro cards.  That must be "interesting" swapping out those tiny cards in the woods!!!!  I have a hard enough time not dropping the regular cards into the snow or leaves and stuff.

Anyways I am going to try to put this little card into the graph tomorrow, stay tuned for more cries for help........😉

9 minutes ago, porkpie said:

Yes the small card inside the big card will work just fine.  Pop it into the micro SD card slot and you should be good to go!

Thanks!  It's so small I hope it only goes in one way, if I put it in backwards it's never coming out of there............

Any idea WHY they would choose to use the micro instead of a standard size SD card?  Trail cameras are a quarter the size of this graph, and they use full-size cards........

Doug

OK so I had the boat in the water back in May for crappies, and not since then.  A trip to BC, and then covid, got in my way.  So far I love the Yamaha, I love the boat, I love spotlock, I HATE the foot pedal, and the graph has been mildly useful but mostly confusing.

So packaged with the graph was an SD card from Navionics, and a link to download the charts etc.  I did get that accomplished without too much cussing.  But when I went to stick the SD card into the graph, first of all it took me forever to find the slot (and its chintzy cover) but the freakin hole is for a micro SD card.  Will that itty bitty wafer that come out of the bottom of the SD card work?  It is about 1/2" by 3/16" and as thin as a playing card.

I have exactly zero idea what to do now.  Can one of you more technical guys please help me out here?  I hope to finally get out for bass this week........

Doug

Nice.  Better to lose your baggage on the homebound trip rather than the outbound trip.  I had the same experience a couple weeks ago coming back from Vancouver....and I do not intend to travel by air again any time soon!

49 minutes ago, Iggy said:

Well we made it, brought out our limit and had a big fish fry. Fishing was a little tougher than usual. I'm not sure if high water levels affect fishing but they were extremely high. I'd say we caught between 150 and 175 between the 4 of us. Going back in August.

150 plus fish for four guys for a week strikes me as pretty darned good!  And yes, I am guessing that high water would affect the fishing pretty much anywhere.

On 7/7/2022 at 12:34 PM, chessy said:

I am not even cirtified to use a screwdriver 

Glad to see I am not the only guy here that can't do squat mechanically.

Hopefully a condo where you can still have a BBQ!!!

7 minutes ago, DanD said:

Yeah I didn't like my propane smoker either at first. Its a dual burner Dyna-Glo. Liked everything about (roomy, good racking) it; but it was just to hot for my style of smoking.

Even with only one burner turned on, to its lowest setting and all the vents open; I could not get the temp below 225-250 degrees. I was roasting the meats, not smoking them low and slow. I was about ready to give up on the thing; but I paid to much for it to just sit there. Then I looked at my camp cooker and its temp control was was on the regulator.

So I took that adjustable regulator and put it on the smoker. I set both of the smoker's burner control knobs to high and then adjust the amount of heat I wanted with the regulator. It also now works great for prepping the smoker; as in getting the chips smoking by cranking up the heat until it gets a good roll of smoke going. Turn the reg down and by the time I get the smoker loaded with whatever I'm smoking; its at about the right temp. Make a few adjustment with either the reg or the smoker's control knobs and I now can control the heat to wherever temp I want. 

Dan...

 

Brilliant!

1 minute ago, misfish said:

Going to swing some of these on the notty in the morning

Good luck Brian!

4 minutes ago, misfish said:

Fancy we are eh. LOL

 

Yep.  when THAT tank is empty, I am in trouble.  Mind you, I left it on overnight one time, God knows how much gas that burned!

4 minutes ago, misfish said:

Food basics Doug

now as I think of it, yes that was where I saw the ribs.  I went THERE looking for their buck-apiece quarter pound lean beef burgers.  They were sold out too.............

Glad I have the house BBQ hooked up to the natural gas.............