nickihoyboy

Glad you found one and didn’t miss too much fishing time. Fish on!

Texas, I don’t know if you have gotten a replacement probe yet, but if you haven’t I’d be willing to lend you my spare probe for the remainder of the season. I don’t want to sell it, as I need to have a spare, but you’re welcome to use it to get you through this year. I’m from NJ, but will be in the Oak Orchard area on Tuesday, 8/18, and can have the probe with me then. It’s the old style X4D probe that uses batteries, but it works fine. If you’re interested you can respond here or shoot me a text at 609-975-2231. Good luck. Nick

I guess a lot depends on how much you’re willing to spend, how much you use them, and where you can get them serviced. I had Cannon Marlins that I bought new around 1990 on my old boat and they worked well until I sold the boat in 2002. I had them serviced twice in that time and had no complaints. I bought a pair of Scotty 2116’s when I bought my new boat in 2019 after hearing complaints about the new Cannons having a couple of issues. The Scottys are awesome in every way, and are easy to access for service yourself. As a big plus, the batteries in the non-serviceable line counters went bad two years later while I was on a two week fishing vacation. I called Scotty in British Columbia, explained the problem, and they sent me two of the new style counters, no charge, which have replaceable AAA batteries, sending them Fed Ex Overnight at their expense, and I had them the next day. That made me a Scotty fan for good.

2nd on Fish Wish Taxidermy.

I answered this question a while back on another thread. I was curious to see if switching from trebles to a single siwash would decrease my hookup rate, so last summer I switched from a treble to a 5/0 Gamakatsu on a mag Carbon 14, a mag UV Green Jeans and a mag Wonderbread to see what might happen. First release on the Carbon-no hookup, so I was already thinking the siwash might be a bad idea. To my mild surprise, I think that’s the only hookup I missed on the siwash hooks for the next two or three weeks. So, pun intended, I’m hooked, for so many reasons. The single siwash does far less damage to the fish, allowing fish to be released unharmed. Much easier and quicker to remove the hook, far fewer tangles in the net and that big hook really gets a solid set behind the fish’s jaw. Also, much less chance of getting a hook into you when a fish starts struggling while removing the hook. As a bonus, no struggles separating lures that you might have just thrown in a plastic container earlier. Only downside I’ve found is mag spoons with the 5/0 siwash drag on the bottom in my maxi-mate because they’re so long. I have since switched to 4/0 hooks on the mag spoons and 3/0 hooks on the standard size spoons. I do agree with Orangediablo about the split ring situation. Replace any split rings that don’t close all the way. I too have had a hook start to work it’s way back off of a ring that didn’t close tight. Many siwash hooks are open eye that are easily closed with a good pair of pliers. And I highly recommend the Texas Tackle green handle (large) split ring pliers for removing and installing closed eye hooks.