"Fishing With New Garmin" Homosassa 3/22/2016

Ruff One

We headed out at noon to do a "Sea Trial" with a new Garmin Echomap Chrip94sv. Gail said that she was tired of looking at my crossed eyes, caused by looking back and forth with these two units.

Had this combo for twelve years, so it was time!
Had a new belt and some valve adjustments, so that was also included in the "Sea Trial". Headed down the river, but if I am going to go out to 20ft, my Cobia arsenal is going to tag along.

Motor ran great. New Garmin is everything that was advertised and more. Man, I didn't know that there were all that cool bottom down there.

Was going over some older areas in 20ft and up popped a volkswagon size piece of structure. Looked like a cobia hang out, so in go the plugs and we started to work it over. First pass and Gail is hooked up. Nice battle and one of those pesky groupers gets his pic taken. Released with the spot marked.

Get set up again and go back. Another rod bending jolt and another grouper hits the deck. Back he goes.

Another pass and one more grouper hits the plugs. Another release. No cobia , so I tell Gail, lets go play somewhere else. Hit some cobia hang outs, but just not there yet. Water temps. were 67.5, so the conditions are here. Did see a lot of surface activity, so the bait has arrived too.
Sea trials were all successful. New Garmin is going to make my fishing a little easier. All ready I picked up a new excellent spot!!
Enjoy.

Redbonz

Man those are some great gags. I was hoping to see some type of cobia pics.... Soon, very soon.....

Windsplitter

Great report, love the pic's. those pesky Gags look yummy. Glad the new equipment is working out.

mburke001 aka TripleB

:thumbsup

HammerheadTed

Awesome sea trial with some hogs. Getting that drag warmed up for Cobia!

navigator2

Don't sell the handheld, combo's would make me a little nervous, if it goes down you have nothing but a compass. Good thing about Garmin is you can download all your spots from handheld to computer to new unit. Might be able to go direct from handheld to mounted one with the right cable? :huh

Rick1-2

Nice grouper, nav is right keep the handheld as a backup, glad everything worked good.

mburke001 aka TripleB

Morning: curious what made you decide on the Garmin and not a Lowrance such as the new TI. thanks

Ruff One

navigator2 wrote: »

Don't sell the handheld, combo's would make me a little nervous, if it goes down you have nothing but a compass. Good thing about Garmin is you can download all your spots from handheld to computer to new unit. Might be able to go direct from handheld to mounted one with the right cable? :huh

The handheld has a mount right next to the new unit. It's not going anywhere! My numbers are backed up on the computer on the Garmin program "Map Source". Transferred numbers to SD card, put card in new unit, numbers transferred to new unit. Really easy.

Ruff One

mburke001 wrote: »

Morning: curious what made you decide on the Garmin and not a Lowrance such as the new TI. thanks

I've always had Garmin GPS with BlueChart, so familiarity help in that part of the decision. On the sonar end, I once took a friend of Billy's out on his boat. He had one of the high end Garmin units. The traditional sonar detail was excellent. You could see blades on the grass. So, when Garmin came out with the Echo series with the new chrip frequency, I bought. After this first trip out, I am really happy. I have numbers that I know are good, but I never really knew why they were good. Now I can see almost every nook and crack down there. The groupers have no place to hide!!

Slacker

If ya'll did not catch cobia they are not here yet.

Love my Garmins.

Ruff One

Slacker wrote: »

If ya'll did not catch cobia they are not here yet.

Love my Garmins.

Met B. Nast at CCA banquet last week and he had pics of nice Cobia caught that week! They are starting to show.

Billy

Nice trip Tom and Gail.

Glad the Chartplotter is all you wanted, and more, as you had enough wait and issues in getting it to you.

Bill

Wishin i was fishin

I've heard of a few cobia caught already, shouldn't be long before they show up in force!

xmuskyguide

Nice to see those pretty gags!

capt louie

Nice shakedown cruise and ready for the Northern invasion I see . :wink

Salt Cracker

Great report as always. That first gag had to of brought a whole range of emotions. haha. If the rock is showing on your graph picture, what is it that clued you in? Was the the wavy bottom showing in the middle of the screen or the rise showing on the right of the screen or both in this shot? Thanks!

Ruff One

Salt Cracker wrote: »

Great report as always. That first gag had to of brought a whole range of emotions. haha. If the rock is showing on your graph picture, what is it that clued you in? Was the the wavy bottom showing in the middle of the screen or the rise showing on the right of the screen or both in this shot? Thanks!

Thanks. Yes, it would be nice to at least keep one! When they open in June(hope), the weeds put me out of the trolling game. Already the weeds are gathering over good structure. That pic is of some rocks in shallow out of Homosassa. Just to see the unit. The structure that we caught those grouper on looked like a car on the sonar. No guessing, 6ft relief off of the bottom, with nothing else around it. Stevie Wonder would have seen it.

Ruff One

capt louie wrote: »

Nice shakedown cruise and ready for the Northern invasion I see . :wink

Yes, we are ready for the North Florida panhandle adventure! Pulling "RuffOne" up to Destin April 1st and staying in Navarre Beach and chasing those monster cobia. We are in two tournaments, the Cobia World Championship and the Bluewater Bay Cobia tournament as well. We will keep everyone informed.

tohotim

Ruff One wrote: »

We headed out at noon to do a "Sea Trial" with a new Garmin Echomap Chrip94sv. Gail said that she was tired of looking at my crossed eyes, caused by looking back and forth with these two units.

Had this combo for twelve years, so it was time!
Had a new belt and some valve adjustments, so that was also included in the "Sea Trial". Headed down the river, but if I am going to go out to 20ft, my Cobia arsenal is going to tag along.

Motor ran great. New Garmin is everything that was advertised and more. Man, I didn't know that there were all that cool bottom down there.

Was going over some older areas in 20ft and up popped a volkswagon size piece of structure. Looked like a cobia hang out, so in go the plugs and we started to work it over. First pass and Gail is hooked up. Nice battle and one of those pesky groupers gets his pic taken. Released with the spot marked.

Get set up again and go back. Another rod bending jolt and another grouper hits the deck. Back he goes.

Another pass and one more grouper hits the plugs. Another release. No cobia , so I tell Gail, lets go play somewhere else. Hit some cobia hang outs, but just not there yet. Water temps. were 67.5, so the conditions are here. Did see a lot of surface activity, so the bait has arrived too.
Sea trials were all successful. New Garmin is going to make my fishing a little easier. All ready I picked up a new excellent spot!!
Enjoy.

NO Fish is safe... Great bi-catch!

barhopper51

Excellent info. Have been thinking about updating electronics. Thanks.

tony b

I also just installed a 94SV and love it great detail.

Almost Perfect

Everybody got new electronics this year.

We need to see a screen shot of the rock. With some lat/lon numbers for reference.

First order of business when I move back at the end of April is to go burn a tank of gas checking some of my better numbers so I can see what they look like on the new sounder.

PONCE

you are a fish magnet