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Written by Captain Mike Gerry
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Saturday, 03 December 2011 09:40 |
NMEA 2000 Technology
As the electronic gadgetry continues to improve on our boats and we continue to upgrade our electronics there needed to be an installation standard and format so we could easily add technology to our network. Hence the National Marine Electronics Association founded in the year 2000 became the NMEA 2000 standard, this marine network is based on CAN technology, Controller Area Network, which gave technology needed bandwidth to expand our networks we are using today in our bass boats. This technology was based on the same technology Bosch developed for the automotive network many years ago. The purpose was 2 fold: 1. Allow easy add on installation for all electronic devices from radio to speedometer to instrumentation powered thru one connection 2. Reduce weight for fuel efficiency in automobiles by eliminating wiring needed to continue to expand our technology base.
Along with this development NMEA 2000 created an industry standard connector that allows all of our electronics to connect to our units from one manufacturer to another, hence allowing you to connect to any of the manufacturer from Lowrance to Garmin to Hummingbird without changing connectors. This in turn has allowed the expansion of many of the electronic gadgetry we are using today on our bass boats from temperature props to engine read outs and the networking of our GPS units on your boat. It has also been the reason we are seeing manufacturers like Lowrance really expand the ability of their depth finder technology to what it is today and what it will be tomorrow thru a series of T’s now known as the NMEA 2000 backbone.
This series of T’s has enormous expansion capability regardless of the size boat of your boat, whether it’s a 20 ft. bass boat or 110 ft. cruiser you can expand the NMEA back bone to 50 nodes or T’s stretching 200 ft. with drop lengths of 19 ft. per device; all powered by one connection. Hence delivering technology capability to just about anywhere you need it on your boat thru one common hook up connection the NMEA backbone.
If you think we have an enormous amount of technology today for our boats, as NMEA 2000 grows, what you have today is just the beginning of what it will be in the future.
Fish Lake Guntersville Guide Service
www.fishlakeguntersvilleguideservice.com
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Call: 256 759 2270
Captain Mike Gerry
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The Integrity of the Alabama rig |
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Written by Captain Mike Gerry
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Monday, 21 November 2011 12:45 |
The Integrity Question Surrounding the Alabama Rig
After spending some time on the water fishing the Alabama Rig I have a better idea of the sportsmanship and integrity issues that are surrounding it! First of all as we have seen the A-Rig has five hooks or baits being used at one time while fishing it. Although my first thoughts prior to fishing it, having five hooks, never seemed to me at the time to be a big deal. After fishing it I have changed my thoughts on the number of hooks.
The first thing I realized is that the five hooks while catching a fish get hooked into several different parts of the fish’s body. I’ve seen a bass hooked from the tail to the mouth and when you start to remove it from the fish you’re pulling several hooks out of its body and maybe just one out of the mouth. The first question that I starting asking myself, if the fish is hooked anywhere including inside of the mouth; how can this fall within the guidelines of the Professional Bass Fishing Circuits. Most of the pro-circuits the fishermen cannot catch the fish anywhere but inside of the mouth; and if it is determined that the bass was caught in any kind of snagging hook set then they must throw the bass back. Well in my experience so far if the bass wiggles at all she will be hooked in several places besides the mouth. The question then arises, was it hooked first in the mouth or snagged by the tail or body. How can you as a fisherman determine the answer to this question when there is five hooks and one of them is in the mouth and the others are snagged all over its body! I believe the answer is unclear; you do not know if the fish was hooked first in the mouth therefore in this situation the bass should be thrown back and not counted in your five bag weigh-in limit.
Then the next thing that I found myself dealing with was the pure fact that four or five hooks all hooked up on a fish had a sense of being painful, and yes I am aware that no one was has ever proved that fish feel pain, it just looked painful and wrong to me. This to me as a big believer of catch and release and someone that wants to preserve the great fishing we have been accustomed too seemed wrong! Secondly after removing three or more hooks out of a fish from one hook set I felt as if this questioned sportsmanship and or could kill the fish and that is something I never want to do.
Fish Lake Guntersville Guide Service
www.fishlakeguntersvilleguideservice.com
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Call: 256 759 2270
Captain Mike Gerry
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Written by Captain Mike Gerry
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Sunday, 06 November 2011 10:06 |
The Alabama Rig
As once again proven the FLW Pro’s come into Guntersville and find a way to take a new look in fishing rigs, lures, and have it produce over a 100lbs. stringer in 4 days of fishing. It wasn’t though without its ups and downs. The Alabama Rig as it’s being called is nothing more than 5 wires hanging out of a central point and set up to hold five swim bait heads and look like a small school of fish. The rig is designed to catch suspending fish that are looking for an easy meal while being in an inactive suspending stage!
It’s a new look, it’s a bait the bass haven’t seen and for Paul Alias it was the avenue to a $100,000 check and in doing it creating a new fade in fishing all over the country. Paul by his own admission was wore out like never before as the Alabama Rig is not easy fishing and my personal thought question whether the average fisherman will enjoy fishing it. If you break down the mechanics of fishing it, you will find it’s heavy, hard to throw with any distance and takes a strong set of arms and hands to fish it for any length of time. The bait itself is set up with ¼ oz. swim bait heads on each of the 5 wires with swim baits on each.
Most of the pro’s using the rig fished a heavy action 8ft. to 8-1/2 ft. rod with 80 lb. test line; the rod is heavy at the bottom near the handle which makes it very tiring to use. Those fishermen that fished it on 40 to 50 lb line found that the weight of the lure could easily break the line at the point of a cast, and if your rod wasn’t strong enough the fishermen missed fish consistently on anything less in backbone. It would almost be like fishing a heavy deep sea fishing rig and if you have ever been deep sea fishing I know you are in sync with how tiring it is.
The bottom line is, the A-Rig is catching fish at the expense of the fishermen’s body strength and endurance; and oh by the way, having 5 hooks out on one lure is illegal in some states and questions the ethics of sportsmanship in fishing!
Fish Lake Guntersville Guide Service
www.fishlakeguntersvilleguideservice.com
Email:
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Call: 256 759 2270
Captain Mike Gerry
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The Fall is not all about Grass |
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Written by Captain Mike Gerry
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Sunday, 23 October 2011 11:06 |
The Fall is not all about Grass
Every year when fall fishing comes around we as anglers head to the grass on Guntersville for a couple of reasons: first it the fun fishing to get that big strike and haul a bass out of the cover and second most believe the obvious grass is where the fish are. Well the real truth is that not all bass head to the obvious feeding areas in the grass, in fact many of the bigger fish move to the open area structure where grass and fishing pressure in not as strong.
I believe that as we have increased the pure number of fisherman over the years on our lakes the bass get smarter and relocate to the non obvious locations to escape the pressure! The fact is the best fisherman move to areas that have subtle structure or deeper coon tail instead of hydrilla or milfoil. Subtle structure is different and it requires some scanning of the bottom with your Structure Scan to find it. Instead of the bass migration to the shallow being all about the obvious locations, many times the bass are taking routes along old hidden road beds where stumps lie on the edges, or move from the deep into the shallow along the edges of the deeper creeks that also hold less obvious structure.
Regardless of path the bass move can be more about subtle changes in depth or shell bottoms that extend out from the shore lines; the one path that most of us forget about is rock structure. The grass always looks so good that we disregard the rock ledges as migration paths and head to the more obvious structure. Guntersville is full of rock and old limestone pits that make for some very good fall fishing areas. You as an angler have to be creative and find some of these different types of structure to make a move off the typical more obvious to the more subtle and obscure!
Fish Lake Guntersville Guide Service
www.fishlakeguntersvilleguideservice.com
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Call: 256 759 2270
Captain Mike Gerry
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Fall Shallow Water Fishing |
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Written by Captain Mike Gerry
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Saturday, 08 October 2011 07:33 |
Fall Shallow Water Fishing
When fishing shallow water in the fall there are many obstacles to overcome and when every bite counts like in a tournament you can’t afford any mistakes. Missing fish is unfortunately part of bass fishing but when every fish counts like in a tournament and when bites are hard to come by then there are some things you can do to protect against some of those shallow water misses.
First of all you must be rigged correctly for the shallow bite so matching your bait to the proper rod and line strength is a must. I have 14 rods in my boat and in the fall I rig 8 of them with 50 lb. Vicious braided line and each reel that braid is paired with a sensitive fast tip Duckett rod with at least medium heavy action, but more likely a fast tip heavy action rod. I want to be able to get a strong hook set, not worry about the line breaking and get as sensitive a rod as I can find. I also generally rig with at least a ¼ oz weight and sometimes even a 3/8 oz. because a bullet weight that is a little heavier than the you would use in the spring helps you detect every bite regardless of whether the bass hits it hard or just lightly picks it up!
It’s also important in the fall that you can locate the grass edges, and as the grass dies off and hangs underneath the water it is not always easy to see. So I use a good pair of Solar Bat sunglasses. They are equipped with extremely clear polarized lenses that can see the grass lines even though they are under water. This allows you to work you’re bait directly on the grass edge; the fall is a time of year where we get a several blue bird days and being able to see the grass edge in imperative. The closer you work the bait to the grass line the more chance you have of getting bites.
Fish Lake Guntersville Guide Service
www.fishlakeguntersvilleguideservice.com
Email:
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Call: 256 759 2270
Captain Mike Gerry
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