Fishing
Electronic upgrades are easier than ever
Computerizing fish finders and other marine electronics has been a good news/bad news proposition. […]
Articles by Allan Tarvid
Fishing
DSC invaluable in VHF marine radios
Digital selective calling (DSC) features on VHF marine radios have been around for almost a decade. This feature lets you call other radios with the press of a button, using the called radio’s Maritime Mobile Service Identification number (MMSI) like a telephone number. […]
Fishing
New radar takes worry out of being close
Jokes about small-boat radars have historically run rampant: “Did you know you can either run radar on your bass/bay boat OR have children later in life?” and “I like having radar on my 18-foot boat. On cold days it keeps my head warm!” are two of my favorites, but they go on and on. […]
Fishing
Water surface temp gauge leads to fish
Fishing improves as spring shoves winter out of the way, and many of us spend more time on the water enjoying it. Newspaper and Internet fishing reports let us know when the fishing gets hot, but they are sometimes a bit light on telling us where. […]
Fishing
Your owner’s manual is your friend
If there is anything worse than a complicated sounder or chart plotter, it’s an owner’s manual that doesn’t give you the traction to climb the unit’s learning curve. […]
Fishing
Parallel, serial battery wiring basics
If you look at the top of a plain old flooded-cell, 12-volt marine battery, you see two widely separated metal posts and plastic caps lined up to cover six holes. […]
Fishing
Betting your life on a paperweight?
If you have an emergency position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) for your boat and it’s old, you need to take a quick look at it. EPIRB’s that operate on 121.5 mHz or 243 mHz will become paperweights after February 1, 2009. The search and rescue satellite aided tracking (SARSAT) satellites will not process those frequencies after that date. […]
Fishing
Pontoon pinging is a little different
A friend showed me his new pontoon boat, and I was impressed until I saw how a sonar transducer was mounted on the back of a pontoon. I remarked that it probably wouldn’t work above idle speed, and he confirmed that as soon as he throttled up above fast idle the fish finder lost its reading. […]
Fishing
Take trip to battery fountain of youth
About 20 years ago, a company called PulseTech Products Corporation developed a way to cancel a process that prematurely “ages” lead-acid batteries, rendering most of them useless long before their components actually wear out. That process is called sulfation, and you have read about it in this column before. […]
Fishing
Not all batteries are created equal
Many fishermen and boaters call any sealed, maintenance-free marine battery a gel battery, and that is not correct. […]
Fishing
GPS: Quest for the bullseye
GPS units navigate by satellites that circle the earth twice a day at an altitude of almost 11,000 miles, yet the system can take you back to within a boat length of a location you saved in memory. Thinking about that makes my head hurt, so like most other fishermen, I prefer to just take the system for granted. […]
Fishing
New PLBs can be real lifesavers
Emergency position indicating radio beacons (EPIRBs) have long been required equipment on commercial vessels and a smart addition for all larger boats. The introduction of the personal locator beacon (PLB), a smaller and manually operated version of the EPIRB, has spread the use of maritime distress beacons to smaller boats and to inland users on both land and water. […]