Written By the On The Water Staff
When you discover a great product – something that makes your time spent on the water more productive, more successful or just more fun – you want to share your find with every fisherman you know. Every year at On The Water, we’re given the opportunity to do just that with our annual staff-written product reviews. What follows are our honest assessments of items both new and not-so-new that have impressed us over the past year. These products have been thoroughly tested, and our evaluations reflect our own observations and experiences. We’ve included prices as a general guide, but they vary depending on where and when the item is purchased. If you have questions about any of these products, please do not hesitate to contact us.
FishGillz Sunglasses
FishGillz Sunglass Co.
Corona Del Mar
California 92625
(760) 771-9145
http://fishgillzusa.com
Price: Starting at $39.95
A good pair of polarized sunglasses is almost as important for a successful fishing trip as having hooks on your lures. Unfortunately, I rarely make it through a season without dropping a pair into the drink and watching them sink out of sight. FishGillz has come up with a solution to that problem, and the best part about these floating sunglasses is that you could never tell by looking at them that they were designed to float. There are no foam pads or additional bulk; instead, they are constructed out of a lightweight floating polymer that also makes them incredibly light and comfortable. The wraparound design is stylish – as you’d expect from a company operating out of Laguna Beach, California – but it is also functional. Side lenses that block glare and preserve your peripheral vision also help you spot surface-feeding fish out of the corner of your eye. The sunglasses are reasonably priced, and FishGillz offers a one-year satisfaction guarantee.
 Lowrance LCX-113C HD
Lowrance Electronics
12000 East Skelly Drive
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74128
(800) 324-1356
www.lowrance.com
$2,349.99
This unit is the large-screen version of the LCX-38C HD, which we’ve installed in On The Water’s 30-foot Black Watch. The screen is fantastic: according to the brochure, it’s a super-high-resolution 10.4-inch diagonal SVGA with 16-bit color SolarMax TFT display. In layman’s terms, this is one of the clearest, most readable screens you’re going to find on the market; it even won “Best Electronics” at the 50th anniversary ICAST 2007 sportfishing trade show.
The unit has a 30 GB hard drive that’s preloaded with tons of mapping software. Some of the combo units I’ve used in the past were overwhelmed by mapping software, which can be frustrating when you zoom in on an area and it seems to take forever for the chart to load. The LCX-113c HD, however, zooms in and out almost instantaneously in the GPS mode. It also has a 12-parallel channel GPS + WAAS receiver.
The sonar features include 8,000 W peak-to-peak (1.000 W RMS) power with a depth range to 3,000 feet at 50 kHz. The option of a dual-frequency transducer is an excellent benefit, as more fishermen in the Northeast are fishing inshore waters and also heading offshore to fish deep water for tuna.
Equally important out on the tuna grounds is the unit’s compatibility with Lowrance X-Band radar in both open array and radome models with up to 48-nautical-mile range utilizing the LowranceNET networking system. There are a ton of other compatibility options with LowranceNET networking, too. It’s essentially Ethernet connectivity for high-speed networking links to multiple Lowrance display units and modules to share and independently operate common data. You can connect gauges or sensors such as engine temp, fuel flow, RPM and oil pressure and view them right on your display.
A particularly interesting feature is the ability to digitally record both GPS detail and the sonar graph. Two waterproof memory card slots accept industry-standard memory cards and also allow uploading of custom maps. You can take this information home and study where you were and what was under you when the fish were biting, which will give you an incredible advantage your next time out.
 Tsunami Weighted
TS Holo Squid
Bimini Bay Outfitters Ltd.
43 McKee Drive • Mahwah,
New Jersey 07430
(800) 688-3481
www.biminibayoutfitters.com/tsunami.htm
Price: $6.49 (pack of six)
I’ve been a big fan of the Tsunami soft-plastic lures for quite a while, and when I saw these new plastic squids at the Worcester Fishing and Outdoor Exposition last February, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them.
Fast-forward seven months, and I’m at the mouth of Waquoit Bay chasing false albacore. There were more fish in the water than I’ve ever seen before, and it was an incredible vision: pod after pod of big, hungry albies crashing bait right next to the boat. But even though the three of us threw just about every lure in the box at them, they continued to give us the cold shoulder. We tried metal lures of every shape and size; we threw jigs, soft-plastic lures, swimmers – you name it, nothing worked. A dozen other boats were working the same area, and nobody was hooking up. Then I dug deep into my backpack and pulled out the pack of chartreuse 4-inch Tsunami Holo Squids. Two casts later, I was tied into my first albie of the day. I had finally figured them out!
Bonito and false albacore are suckers for small squid, and these Tsunami baits imitate them as closely as any I’ve seen. Their detail is second to none, and when twitched through the water, they look just like one of the juvenile squid that are common in Vineyard Sound in the fall. Weighing ½ ounce each, they are also quite heavy and cast well. The technique that worked for me was allowing the lure to sink for a few seconds and then beginning a fast retrieve with lots of pauses and rod-twitching. Every few seconds, I’d pause and let the lure sink, then start cranking fast to send the squid shooting up toward the surface.
Tsunami Weighted TS Holo Squid are available in 4- and 6-inch models in a variety of colors. The bodies are available unweighted in sizes from 3 to 9 inches.
COntinue to next Page |
