Allan Tarvid, Author at Mississippi Sportsman

Mounting transducers with a need for speed

August 24, 2017 Allan Tarvid

You open the throttle, plane the boat, tickle the trim until you can’t go any faster, and then your sonar loses the bottom. Chances are, the problem lies with your transducer installation.

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The big screen advantage

July 24, 2017 Allan Tarvid

“Multifunction display” grows in meaning with each new generation of marine electronics. Sonar functions now include traditional down-looking 2-D scanning with and without CHIRP, high-definition side and down scanning, live forward scanning, 360-degree circular scanning and a choice of frequencies to optimize each type for either maximum detail or greatest scanning depth/distance. […]

Seat of your pants sonar

June 22, 2017 Allan Tarvid

Sonar fishfinders have always helped us find fish and fish-holding structure, but helping us precisely target fish has been another story. Early on,bulb-type flashers supported vertical jigging. You dropped your lure and watched its flash move down to a flash marking a fish and then, hopefully, all you had to do was set the hook. The problem was that not all the nearby fish were directly under our boats — not even all the fish we saw on our screens. Some were at the outside edge of the cone of sound generated by our transducers and we couldn’t tell if they were to our left or right or off our bow or transom.

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What’s in a software update?

May 24, 2017 Allan Tarvid

Lowrance’s latest software update reminded me that it has been a while since I mentioned how important updates are to all of us — no matter what brand of electronics we run.

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Personal trailer parking

April 24, 2017 Allan Tarvid

Folks who think the average boater is great at backing a trailer need only spend 30 minutes observing a busy boat ramp to learn the truth. […]

C-MAP lets you customize inland and coastal mapping

March 23, 2017 Allan Tarvid

A bass club member I used to know was hilariously secretive about his tournament fishing. As we watched from the headquarters dock, he would circle around the far side of a lake before returning to weigh-in to hide where he’d been fishing. […]

Serious electronics can be affordable

February 20, 2017 Allan Tarvid

Unfortunately for our wallets, we can’t avoid some cost increases in electronics. They stem from new features appearing in each product generation that require more computer power and better screens. […]

Marine electronics for your wrist

January 23, 2017 Allan Tarvid

An electronic watch can be as smart as Einstein and still be useless to fishermen if it isn’t waterproof.

Well, Garmin’s Quatix 3 ($449.99) can be submerged to 100 meters — about 178 feet deeper than the practical limit for SCUBA divers on compressed air — so this watch should handle anything a fisherman is likely to encounter. […]