keeganzpapa

I was stationed a short time in Germany. At the festivals they always had carp on sticks tilted over a campfire smoking them, You could smell them for miles. They were quite good. I compare Bowfin to carp as they both seem to be bottom garbage fish. I assume they both are equally poisoned with PCB's and mercury?

I had one for a 12' flat bottom boat. Unless they have really good springs or shocks they really bounce around on back roads, and are extremely hard to see when you are backing because or their low profile.

Thanks Webertime. It's a big help, are you saying not to go smaller than Goose52's floats or the ones I found that would give me 50# buoyancy per side like Darren? It seems like Him and his Wife and a Kiddo would be an adequate comparison of me going alone standing, or don't you think so? Glad to talk to someone with the same canoe.

Thank you MassYak85, I wondered about the stumps. One pond my Son fishes in his flat bottom 12' bass boat is loaded with them and we are always hanging up on top of them, always wondered how it would be in a canoe, as we stop pretty abruptly when we go up on them unexpectedly. He is suggesting electrical conduit pipe for its strength but light. I see that Darren filled his with a dowel. I worry about how PVC would hold up in the sun.

Goose52, Thanks for your reply, I was kinda wondering if there was something wrong with my post, with no responses, or if for some reason I was being "ignored". It is hard to understand why but then again not everyone owns canoes or kayaks or read every post like I do. Thanks for your imput. I had worried about drag myself. I found a company YakGear canoe and kayak outfitters that have 14"x5"x5" bullet buoys that two on each side would give me 50# buoyancy per side, and could DIY a stabilizer for about 1/3 the price of yours, however admittedly not as nice. Not definite with that but meets my budget better. Wow, what an awesome Fall picture. It is pictures like that that our wives or girlfriends don't get to see when they can't understand why we keep going back. Darren, yours is probably what I am going to go with. they would be about 28" to 30" long per side.

I have a 14.7 Old Town Guide canoe which I don't feel safe in, however love to bass and crappie fish, and this fits my budget and I can handle it myself to load and unload. I have never stood in the canoe, and would not make it a habit, but I don't even feel safe lipping a fish into the canoe and low crawl forward to check the battery for the TM. Needless to say all my equipment would be swimming with the fishes if it ever rolls but I feel safer the more time I spend in it. I have seen a "bird of prey" stabilizer on youtube which looks real good and think I would like to copy it. I weigh just under 200# and 5'8". I have located several bullet nose crab cage buoys, for example eastern marine sells 5 7/8"x13 3/4" with a 1" hole and an approximate buoyancy rating of 11 lb. I would use two of these on each side, however I would like to know from you if 22# per side is sufficient, and if not, what works for you and where you purchased (website or store name) a better buoy. If posting that here is a problem, please pm me. I would also appreciate any pics of your set up that I may have some better ideas to work with. Thanks in advance for your help/advice.

http://fishfindersadvisor.com/hook-4/ http://www.furunousa.com/LearningCenter/Transducer-Beam-Angle-Calculator.aspx The first link tells the angle the transducer transmits at according to what function you are using, and also the size of the cone area coverage. You have to read the figures very carefully. The second link is an automatic calculator of the cone area coverage according to the angle and the depth. Once you put in the angle of your beam, then the depth and hit calculate, it will automatically show the beam area of coverage. I believe this is the distance from the center of the transducer to the edge of the cone in any direction. The shape of the CHIRP sonar differs from that of the down scan. The CHIRP is a cone shape. The down scan is like a flattened cone wider port and starboard and very narrow bow to stern. I received the same ff for Christmas and have spent over a month finding this information, and am very glad I read about your experience as I would have reacted the same. The fish are showing a very strong return making me think they are huge, where they are only close to the transducer, but small. I look forward to reading more of your experiences, as it will probably be Spring before I get my unit out. I see from your photo that you are using the 455 KHZ beam. So if you use the beam angle to calculate, at 3.5 ft you are shooting a fore to aft beam of 0-1 ft and a port to starboard beam of 4 ft.

If you go onto utube you will find videos for the Hook 3x and the Hook 3x DSI and several other Hook 3x units. IF YOU"RE STILL INTERESTED, that is. You may want to view this youtube video,

Red_King814 I think you and I are about in the same boat. After asking for a fish finder for Christmas, my wife had me pick one. Knowing our budget was limited, and still stretching it quite a bit I asked for a Hook 4 chirp. It has down imaging and sonar. Being that it is not Christmas yet, I am not allowed to open the box and it is killing me. What I have found out, however, is that apparently Lowrance remade the "Elite" units that had basic sonar, changed to Chirp sonar and are now selling them as "Hook" units. This being my first fish finder I have nothing to compare to, I chose the Hook 4, as it has a larger screen. It was advertised as Chirp 2d sonar, down view, and a sd card slot for plotting. However right or wrong, maybe WayneP will chime in and help out, but I will gladly pass on to you anything I find out, but it seems that there aren't even utube videos on the new (Hook) name, only the "elite" name. Had I known that before I had my wife buy it I may have chosen a different brand name, however I am excited over having a maps sd card capable unit for the lower price. I think that is why you have had no replies yet, as the new Hook name is so new that nobody has had the time to compare or had time on the water with these units.

OK, I guess I misunderstood. From viewing the link from "I do what I want" it would work if you have only rolled onto one side, or did something to keep yourself from completely falling all the way out, and I could see myself doing this, if I were upside down but still locked into the canoe. My imagination had me tipping out into the water, which is the more probable situation, with the canoe turned upside down in the water next to me. This actually happened about 30 years ago when a branch which was sticking our from the bank caught me and flipped me over. Fortunately the creek was shallow enough to walk the canoe up onto the bank and upright it.

Way2slow I have seen kayakers perform this maneuver but they are usually sitting in the kayak upside down and use the paddle to flip back over. I am very interested in learning it but can't wrap my mind around how to position myself into the upturned canoe if I am drifting in water next to the canoe which is probably drifting next to me upside down. Am I missing something? I'm not trying to be wise, or poking any fun, don't take this wrong please. This could save my life and I want to understand it. The only way I have read about uprighting a canoe is to get under it with a hand on each gunnel side and springing up with your legs. (Sure, maybe 30 years ago, and then only on my best day, and then only if I could spring up off the bottom. Thing weighs about 80# empty.) Any help is appreciated. Thanks

http://www.batteryminders.com/how-to-extend-a-batterys-life/ Sorry to waste anyone's time but I found this on the web.

I have a 12 volt deep cycle battery that I bought new about 3 months ago in my garage. Just enough heat loss to the attached garage from the house keeps the garage from reaching freeze temperatures. I have a battery tender desulfator attached and plugged in to tend the battery. I have read about people extending their battery life several years with the tenders. My question is that of safety. How long should I leave it hooked up between uses without fear of it being a fire hazard or drying out (boiling or bubbling the acid out) the battery and is it better to leave the caps on or off?

Whew!

I have been studying this as I am getting the hook 4 for Christmas. Would you view this video and see if anything in it helps? Please let me know. Administrator, please forgive me, I don't know how I got this video opened and posted. I only meant to post the reference. I don't know how to undo what I did, so I will take my lashings.

Thanks Wayne P., that is what I needed to understand.

http://lakeinsight.gofreemarine.com/?_ga=1.129636812.1339678585.1480632086 NH Bull, try this site, supposedly this GOFREE Lake Insight is preloaded. Let me know how you do, hope this helps. A rep from Lowrance said that either Insight Nautic or insight Lakes would be preloaded. Could it be in the chip that comes with the unit that has to be loaded into it>

Please permit a couple more questions. (Remember, I won't have side scan. Only Down scan and imaging.) Having not received the Hook 4 with down view and sonar scan yet, and looking at the transducers on line and thinking I know which one comes with it, It appears to have a window looking aperture or lens on one end, and that end faces in the direction which would be the left side of the screen, or what you have already or are passing over, soon to be at the rear of the vessel. If I am in my canoe, anchored, over structure, let's say a tree or bush, is it going to show as being directly below me or am I going to have to be ahead of it to see it looking back? Does the down view come from a reflection bouncing up from the bottom, or is it a picture like image through the lens on the end or is that just for water temperature? I think I know the sonar pings back up off the bottom. If I am placing a buoy to mark something below the surface, I can see how easy it would be to misplace it. (Hope this does not sound like such a novice question, but in all honesty, it truly is.

I think that it is pretty awesome that you can make those trails, (looks like several day's work) and turn it over to the computer and see the quality of chart which it developed, and then anyone else that sends data in will help upgrade its quality. Sweet!

Thank you Wayne P., It is great to have someone that you know is not guessing and whose answers are verifiable. A lot of people try to guess a good answer that I don't entirely trust to be reliable, and I am not referring to anyone else in this post, just how I have felt on other post pages. Can you tell me, since the unit I am buying is chart plotter capable, would I be able to take the SD card that comes with it or a separate SD card and chart Hunting Run Reservoir for my own personal use? Would the different scan periods files merge to make one chart or would they just be single useless files of each attempt to cover the entire reservoir? That would save me the cost of Navionics or Insight Genesis membership if it worked.

Wayne P ... Part of the description of the unit I ordered from West Marine states it contains "Included is Americas chart Lake Pro (TM) with thousands of detailed lakes across the USA". "Global Chart upgrade Options include Navionics+ and Jeppesen-C-Map Max-N" would you be able to tell me what all this means? Do you think I will have contour maps of some of our local lakes and reservoirs which you have charted thru Navionics? with hopefully no extra fee?

I was hoping Waye P was listening.

Unfortunately the Hook 4 is my budget limit, and allows me to get a taste of everything. I downloaded a manual and it does have a sd chip slot, so my next purchase will probably be a Navionics Maps sd card. After browsing through 56 pages of manual on the internet my head is spinning. They combine the several Hook models into one manual and you don't know what you've got till you get the unit and power it up I guess. I run an Old Town Guide 147 canoe with a small MinnKota TM so I think this will do for now. I can't imagine being on a new lake far from the dock and breaking a prop, however it did happen to me 30 years ago on an old Ted Williams 4,5 hp. The shear pin broke, and luckily I carried an extra and a pair of pliers. That must have been a real day spoiler for you, and I can certainly understand why you would be upset.

Thank You Scott F, when my Mother was living she used to say "Even bad breath is better than no breath at all." The maps that come built in are probably the same quality as what you have. I seem to have a very hard time finding much information on this particular unit, however I hope it has a card holder for purchasing navionics maps sd cards. I have seen some of Wayne P's work, and they seem pretty accurate, and I know he uploads to Navionics, and updates them as well, and some of them are my local lakes (reservoirs). I hope I did not do wrong by changing, but even bad maps have to be be better than having none on the Garmin unit. Everything on west marine's website refers to the Lowrence Hook 4 "Elite". But nothing refers to just the Hook 4, wonder what the "elite" means

Well, I went online this morning and purchased a Garmin Striker 4 DV finder from westmarine.com for a 16% discount off full price with free shipping. I regretted at the time that I was not spending the extra $50.00 for something with maps. After posting on here if anyone could tell me about the unit, and after reading Scott F's reply and remembering Wayne P's previous posts, I convinced myself I needed maps. westmarine,com's live chat permitted me to change my order to a Lawrence Hook-4-Lake with CHIRP Transducer, Built-in GPS Antenna, Lake Pro Cartography and Cover. It was down 45% from $369,99 to $199,99 with free shipping to my home. I apologize to anyone who posted on my other concerning the Garmin Striker 4 DV, but can someone now tell me their experiences with this unit? Thanks in advance, and sorry again for the change.