1st of 2012

I'm so thankful that I only had to wait until the 8th day of 2012 to get out on the water.  The temperature topped out around 50 degrees today which is good enough for me.  Actually, it felt perfect on the water.  Andy, Ryan and I chose Beaver Lake as our destination.  We put in the water around 11am and pulled out around 2pm.

It was a day of 1st's....It was the first trip of the year....Andy made his maiden voyage on his new Pyranha....And, I tried out my new fish-finder for the 1st time.

We spent about 3 hours out on the lake.  I took a majority of that time trying to figure out how to use the fish-finder.  I've never used one before, so it was all new to me.  There are lots of settings and indicators on the screen that I was unfamiliar with.  The fish-finder is a Humminbird 160 PT.  My in-laws got it for me for Christmas this year.  What a cool present!!!!!  It's made to be portable so it all fits into a little bag that I can easily store between my legs in the kayak.  The sonar is attached to the bottom of the boat by a suction cup.  The suction cup didn't prefer to stay stuck so we used a ratchet strap to keep it fastened. (that worked ok, but I'll look into another option before I go out again)

I had trouble getting the depth finder to give an accurate reading.  It was giving me depths of up to 500 feet at times.  It turns out that I had the sonar pointed in the wrong direction.  Ooops....when I got home and read the manual I realized my mistake.  I had the sonar pointed behind my boat instead of directly down.  Next time I'll make sure to attach it correctly and I think we'll have better luck.

We didn't catch any fish and only had 1 bite.  But, like always, it's just good to get out on the water!  I learned a few things about the fish-finder so I'll be a little more experienced next time.  I think it's going to be a great tool....once I figure it out!