Capt No Fish

Not on the power cord. They are on the Transducer cable as provided by Garmin's instructions. I have 100% narrowed it down to something from the motor because I tried a Lawrence unit and it's own battery and still happening. Below is the image of just when I give throttle. I have replace the plugs as Tom suggested. With weather we have been having here in the mid-atlantic over the past week or so I haven't had the opportunity to get out and try that.

Thank TnRiver46. So this is set up like mine with all what I am calling bonding wires. I am assuming that if my electronics are using the cranking battery then I have a common ground and shouldn't be getting the interference. Thanks for the input Tom. Since my motor is hooked up to the batteries negative then I am properly grounded. I am assuming that if my electronics are using the cranking battery then I have a common ground and shouldn't be getting the interference. What about the second question of taking a ground from my battery and running a wire to the same anode to rule out a bad ground. Would that work for that test or would I be doing harm to my equipment?

Hello, I have a few questions about outboard grounding. I am having an issue with my electronics and interference when the motor is running, as seen on my previous post. I am working with Garmin and they sent me new power wires, and a transducer to rule those out. In addition I hand held and moved the transducer all over the stern of the boat on both sides of the motor and nothing worked till I held the transducer next to the drivers seat in my aluminum tracker. Replaced the plug which are resistor plugs. The one thing that everyone keeps mentioning is to check the grounds. So here are my questions. 1. I have a 2019 20 HP Mercury EFI Model F20ELPT. I have looked all over the internet and downloaded the manuals. I didn't see anything in the installation section on where the motor ground may be, nor could I find it on the internet. I can see that there are bonding wires connecting all the metal items together on the motor. They connect the mounting bracket to the tilt bracket and then mounting bracket to the hydraulic tilt cylinder. At the lowest point of the mounting bracket it ends up bonded to a bare aluminum anode, which is clean but I took off and sanded everything down anyway to make sure there was a good connection. Where would the ground wire be? Is it simply that the block is the bonding buss and by virtue of the block being bolted to the outboard housing and drive shaft be the ground? 2. If I wanted to test or even create my own grounding system to the water. ---Is it safe to take the negative of the battery and run a wire to a bolt below the water level? ---If I did something like that would I be creating undo electrolysis causing my motor to get eating up? --- Would this cause the battery to discharge while the boat was just sitting in the water. I know there are some good electrical people here and I thank you for your input during my troubleshooting!

Will give these a try, thanks. That is what I did in my second test with the second screen shot. I had the battery in the center of the cockpit area with a direct wire. Same Results. I wasn't able to check that because I was by myself on the boat. I did however per my dad suggestion try it in neutral. I actually had the boat on the trailed when I tested that and there was still interference on the screen. I didn't have the trolling motor even hooked up when this was happening. I have a 24 V trolling motors and took one of the batteries to due the test where I had the Garmin hooked up on it's own batter and put that in the center of the boat. Do you still feel it could be the spark plug wires? I guess I can also try a test where I take my unit to the front of the boat and pull the transducer wire up there and see if it is happening. How far away do you think spark plug wires could cause interference?

One of the tests I did was to try it in Neutral so to take the prop wash out of the equation. It occurred then as well.

Hello, I am hoping someone here on BR maybe able to help or provide some idea. In December I purchased a used 2019 Tracker Pro 170 with a 20 HP Mercury 4 stoke EFI. I sold my previous boat and took my electronics, transducer, trolling motor and mounted them on this boat. I never had an issue with my previous boat and the electronics on that boat which was a 96 Crestliner sportfish. Taking my boat on on the lake to try everything to make sure it works and I am ready for the fishing season. When running my Mercury motor I get interference on my screen. This first picture was taken with everything wired on my starting battery. I verified that the motor has a ground wire hooked up to the mounting bracket on the motor. For my unit I have a 10G tinned copy wire going directly from the unit to the battery. In this next picture as I went through all my trouble shooting. I completely pulled the 10G direct wire back through the boat so it wasn't touching any other wire and put a separate battery in the middle of the boat next to the console to completely isolate it. It has it's very own battery and very own wire. When going under say 2k RPM it seems ok. If I give it any gas the interference shows up. Below you can see when I gave it gas, then pulled the throttle back and then gave it gas again. That is in the 2 bars. You can see it in the side view and the 2 D. I have the ferrel installed on the transducer. Very bottom picture shows the interference when running. I am open to any and all ideas as I am out of them. Thank you in advance!

Thanks guys, I had hoped this was the case. I guess I was in doubt because I only found the structure 1x with my jig. This is probably due to this being new to me and just learning to fish the structure. I will continue to use the point of the bow as my visual direction marker.

I am learning how to fish off shore. I am using a heading line on an Garmin Echo map to find where my way point is so I can cast to it. I have my console unit set up like the read where the back of the unit is facing the bow and the screen facing the stern (driver) . On the bow I put the unit oriented like the picture where it follows the gunnel to get it out of the way. My question is will the bow unit show my heading correctly. I have the setting to heading up. When approaching the waypoint is my bow pointing at the way point or is the back of the unit point at the way point. I do not have a heading sensor installed. Everything on the charts are based on the internal unit antenna. And the units are networked together so I can share waypoints.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I saw another video with a professional on wired to fish and they did the bus bar close to the console. I went with MN Fisher's suggestion of the closed end terminals. I did however cut the cap flare off and then put some marine heat shrink over it all to try and make it a little more water resistent.

Its the Marine grade, stranded tinned copper. The issue was it was only attached to the one side of the 10 AGW wire. The solder didn't run over the whole thing. Perhaps my soldering iron doesn't get hot enough.

Hello all, I was wondering if someone can provide assistance. I have been doing some research and see that it is recommended that I use a 10 gauge power wire directly from the battery to get the clearest picture on the FF. I bought the 10g marine wire and tried to solder the tiny power wire from my Garmin to it with not much luck. Seems the size difference is too much to get a good job. What is the best way or preferred way to get a solid connection between the 10 gauge power wire and the tiny, I don't know what gauge, wire from the FF wiring harness. Appreciate the help!

I am seeing a lot of people stating this is their wacky rig rod. I am curious, why this over a spinning rod. I have always used spinning for wacky, poppers, flukes, jig head paddle tails. Is there a benefit of one over the other. Even though I ordered the rod, I am wondering if I should just keep using spinning and take back the Medium casting. I know a lot ask do you find yourself looking for this or that. To be honest, I catch like 10 - 15 fish a year and it is hard to catch where I live so I don't know. I don't even know why I catch what I caught. I just feel lucky when I do. I get into the just try everything I have on my deck till something catches something. I can't really say that I lose fish because of something. I just don't get that many bites.

I am at 1400 Acres, I don't know if that is considered large. It feel bigger due to horsepower restrictions. And I guess another point that I see being commented. Is it is an earth dam so they don't bring the water level down in the winter. It's always at a constant.

Thanks Ajay, this is some really great information for me to process. Yes generalization is fine with me. I am just looking for something to take the overwhelmingness down a little while I learn and gain some experience. I don't have many numbers days but I am at least catching 1 each trip for the most part. What I have extrapolated from your post, Choporoz and txchaser is that when I hear someone talk about near deep water and where to look at "near" deep water within 70 - 100 yards of structure or cover. Thanks Catt!

Yes my lake is highly shad oriented. But this starts to put in to perspective that near deep water is with in say 70 yards or so if I was to take the 2 casting lengths into consideration.

Ok you guys talked me into it. Bass Pro had the KVD's on sale for $70. I figure that would be a good one to play around with till I determine I like it. I throw almost everything on a medium heavy except cranks and I have a heavy rod for flipping and frogs.

Correct, the M/M is my smaller crank bait rod. Unweighted plastics I have generally through on a spinning outfit, same with the swimbaits unless I have them on a jig head fishing deep then I just use the MH/F because I put them on a 1/2 oz. Thanks for the input.

I have heard this expression in youtube video's and read it on the forums. As a newer angler I would like to quantify this a little. Now before you beat me up with the it's relative answer, I know it is. But there must be some guard rails I can use for my judgement. Is near deep water only next to a drop off? Does it just need to be only a 1 ft deeper or am I looking for 10ft or more deeper? Is there a point where it can be too much of a drop off and go too deep. (example submergent grass from the shore and then it drops off to 40 ft and this is all within 20ft of the shoreline) How far away do I consider near? Is it 10 ft, 10ft, 30 Yrds or 300 hundred yards? I don't know how far a bass will travel during the course of a day to move up and down. At some point it must be considered to mild of a grade to be near deep water and I should be looking for more of a drop. When looking for structure or cover "near" deep water when do I quit the search at. Hopefully you can see my confusion. I appreciate your input!

I am wondering if this is a rod I should consider purchasing. I see Fluke Master mentions the medium fast in his video's fairly often and even has one saying that is the best rod to own. What would I use it for? Do you own one and what do you use it for? I already have a MH/F, MH/MF, M/M in casting and a M/M, ML/M spinning set ups. I don't have a brand or anything in mind. Just thoughts on if I have a whole in the lineup.

I didn't need them but I bought them anyway because they are half price. I know they are not Shimano Curado's or anything like that. But my Lews reels have treated me really good. I have mostly the $100 speed spools, 1 KVD and 1 Tournament MP which is basically the same. I don't notice the geary stuff that people talk about. My reels have been smooth and workhorses. I don't grease them. I keep them clean and just use them. Maybe if you compared these middle of the road reels to the higher end stuff at Shimano they might not be the same but your not paying that price either. To answer you actual question they come USPS. I am on the east coast and they shipped from Columbia, SC according to the tracking and will be here on Tuesday.

Darn you for confirming! I had to go out and buy 2 because it's like BOGO KVD reels! The KVD one I have is excellent for the money. But thank you for doing so. All the specs on the Academy page match the KVD one as well. Oh and I signed up for the 10% for new emails and got more off. No Brainer!

Thanks for the info. I will definitely look to incorporate it in my search.

Ok, I guess that I thought since I heard the lakes are around 30 FT from the video's I was watching I think on the Don Dickson Channel, I assumed that was the rule. I guess the books are probably more detailed. The water on the lake is medium stained. Depends on the day. Some days it's 1 - 1.5 other days 2ish and depending on the time of year with Fall being clearer I suppose. There is another lake Blue Marsh around here and it looks like pea soup which I would call stained. Nockamixon I am assuming is clearer because of all the vegetation to filter it. Where Blue Marsh is more rockier. So I guess the best approach would be a blend of the 2 types.

If you go on you tube look up Don Dickson or Structure Fishing. They are both channels and teaching Bucks Methods. Both the same information Don Dickson is a little more long winded and the guy on Structure fishing is a little more brief. Also The Structure fishing guy has video of Buck's lectures as well. Might save you a few bucks for that bait you always wanted ;)

I can see that and Kind of feel that way about this lake. I suppose these shouldn't be treated as rules and just guidelines. Something to put in the tool box as something to use in trying to figure out where they are.