Pro Angler Exposes Forward Facing Sonar Setting Secrets!

In this episode we sit down with Tai Au to break down a livescope settings hack that most anglers overlook, but makes a huge difference in image clarity on the water. Tai walks through exactly how he dials in his settings for a cleaner picture, along with the baits that consistently produce for him fishing the West Coast. Whether you are new to forward facing sonar or looking to sharpen your setup, this episode is packed with practical tips you can use on your next trip. Tune in to learn how small settings changes can lead to a lot more bites.

📌 Important Links:
Tai's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taiaufishing/

📌 Baits Discussed (Click the link and use code SERIOUS10 for 10% off your order):
Senko: https://omnia.direct/aetbh
Roboworm: https://omnia.direct/arnr

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📌 Click here to start your FREE trial of Omnia Fishing Premium PRO: https://omnia.direct/SAPremiumPRO

📌 This episode is brought to you by our amazing partners:
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right. Welcome everyone to the Sears Angler Podcast and welcome to another edition of the Sear C Western segment here. And uh today's episode, we have an awesome one for you guys. We do not have a formal intro outro uh because simply Deacon and I did not have the time to put it together, but we are joined today by Mr. Ty O to talk about a bunch of stuff, but he really dives into how to adjust your live scope settings, some of the intricacies of the baits that he's learned out east and now fishing on the west coast, the similarities, the differences, and the things that he's found to be productive and efficient on both East Coast and the West Coast. Two gigabytes. So we're gonna keep this intro short. Uh Deacon and I have both got very busy uh this past week. We were able to get a bunch of episodes done, so we're gonna have a bunch of episodes for you guys coming soon. Excuse me. As I am actually right now, as you're listening to this episode, I'm on the water in Wisconsin for the last regular season Bassmaster Kack series event. Deacon's been on the road heavy for work. Things are slowly starting to die down for us. We have one last little stretch here that's gonna be pretty busy. So we might not have much up-to-date news for you guys in our intros, uh, but we will have episodes for you guys coming forward where um kind of uh on not really on purpose here, but had almost like a western couple weeks where obviously we have Ty O from this episode, we have Matthew Brannan from the California on the next episode. Uh we have John Murray next week, in addition to a real biology episode on Monday that is in from Oklahoma. So we have a bunch of stuff coming your guys' way. But uh we'll be having Justin Lucas here on the show soon. We got a bunch of stuff lined up for you guys, so uh no shortage of shows coming your way. But without further ado, let's get into today's episode with Mr. Ty Ow. All right, folks. So we're with uh the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Ty O. And uh Ty, dude, it's good uh good to get you back on here, bro.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yeah, it's been a while. I think it was the last time I was on with you guys is back in 2020 before uh left to do the tour.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

No way, yeah. Wasn't that was it I thought did we do one show when you when you were coming back to fish west? Maybe we did, maybe. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

I think it was back in 2020, if I recall correctly, because that was a scary time in my life. I had uh quit my job, mortgaged the house, started a business from scratch, and I got the uh a taste of what it was like truly fishing for a living. And uh it's stressful, it's not like what you guys think, not what I thought.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yeah, yeah. Either way, it's it's good getting you on here. And then that is that's one thing when Deke and I are going scheduling shows, we're like, who haven't we had on? Because we love to get a mix of like recurring guests, but also like new people. We're like, man, we're almost 650 episodes into this. Who haven't we had on yet at this point? Uh but it's it's it's cool, bro, and it's cool to see you know reflect from back then to to now and seeing where you're at, and obviously, you know, competing against Deegan out on the West Coast. And we just went through a whole deep dive that we're trying to we'll get back to here in the show when talking about Southwest region stuff. But um I know we want to talk about what 2026 has been like for you, dude.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Uh I mean I'll just keep it real with you guys. Like, I I'm not good at putting up a front or anything like that. 2026 has been really weird for me, you know, especially after all the stuff that went down late last year and dealing with, you know, the course of public opinion, what really happened, knowing the truth, and it was just a hard pill to swallow because I know what it took for me to get out there, and it took a lot. I mean, six months of my life in two years, 134,000 just to have it go down the way it did, um, it still stings to this very day. Uh so at that time, I you know, I didn't know how things were gonna shake out last November, but I just knew that I need to keep moving. And the best move on the chessboard was to come back out west. You know, uh people don't realize that what beh what happens behind closed doors, you know, going back and forth, you know, three hours ahead in Florida coming back. I mean, I didn't get sleep for five years. I mean, literally when I got back, man, I was waking up at one o'clock in the morning, couldn't go back to sleep. A week later, I'll get up at 2.30 and then essentially 3.30, and then it starts all over again. So that went on for five years. Uh basically I recovered during the off-season, but during the off-seasons, even more stressed out. I'm even more stressed out than you know, in the middle of the season because they're trying to put together the deals, uh, trying to get put together the sponsorships, your plans for the following year. So uh man, I can't say I had a good I've had a good, like, stress-free Christmas in the last five, six years. Let's just put it that way. But um, you know, that's that's just the nature of it. You strap down, knuckle down, get to work, and um I wasn't gonna let anything stop, or at least I thought I wasn't gonna let anything anything stop in my head. It wasn't a matter of if uh I was ever gonna get there, it was just a matter of when. And I really thought that that was things were lining up for me finally. And when that went down, man, I mean, just oh, I still I still struggle with it every single day since it happened.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Dang, bro.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Yeah, yeah, man. Well, I can't, I can't only I can only imagine any of that stuff. I've done a little bit of travel from the west back east, fishing opens and Toyota series and things, and like you're you're dead on, man. It is such such a grind. Um, I am I am happy in the West. I love the West. Um, I love like we talked about the landscapes are really important to me. I just am so impressed with our our fisheries and the and the beauty. Uh I'm the biggest component of the West, or I'm the biggest uh cheerleader of the West. Uh I try try to be with our show anyway to push the stuff. But how is how has that transition been? Um sounds like things have still been tough and and just wrestling with all of that, but you know, coming west, fishing both the super 60 and the one bass stuff. What is uh what has that transition been like for you? Are you you know um how's how's the season been, number one? And then just like personally, business, all that, how has that shifted being back west?

SPEAKER_02 6:49

Um a lot of it's good, some of it's bad. Uh I think the worst part, you know how like they say fishing's a mental game? Well, I'm dealing with a different type of mental game. At the beginning of the season, I'll be honest with you guys, I didn't know if I wanted to be out there. You know, I just I didn't know it was the time to walk away, and I just found that I didn't have the same level of motivation. But once I'm out there, you know, it I mean, I still love fishing, don't get me wrong. Once I'm out there, I want to compete, and I get really upset when I don't do well. So it kind of reconfirms that I still have that drive, that competition um part of me that is really important to um, you know, to go fish competitively. If I didn't have that, I think it would be time to walk away. But uh the transition fishing-wise, man, a lot of the things that I've learned back east really helped me out west, like understanding forward-facing sonar. I've said this before. I think the guys out west are about a couple years behind the guys back east when it comes to forward-facing sonar. I mean, those guys back east, nothing but respectful, they are so freaking good at it. I mean, I've learned a lot, everything from setting up my equipment, what batteries to run, why power matters, running clean power, um, how to utilize or side scan, down scan, forward-facing sonar, all these little hacks that I've learned back east. Because if you didn't learn that, man, you're getting left behind, like big time. So going out west, um, for me, it's just trying to, I guess, put away some of the stuff back east that didn't work, you know. Um, I I c I called it tournament lag when in 2022 I fished the Toyota series out west and the Pro Circuit back east. And I remember struggling because I'm throwing a color like red bug. Dude, I didn't even know what red bug was before going back east. So I'm taking that color, throwing it over here. It's like, man, I'm not getting bit. I'll switch back over to green pumpkin and get bit. So I call it tournament lag. So it's just relearning how some of the lakes fish, what colors are popular there. I mean, for the most part, I know it. It's just I have I struggle because I got so much confidence in a variety of baits, but I just need to go back to the basics sometimes. Um, some of the lakes here, like I haven't been a brownle. I mean, that was one. Uh uh, I just went fishing, wondering why I didn't see anybody all day. And then again, I think I caught 12 fish over cast conditions, knowing that smallmouth don't maybe don't bite in overcast conditions. Came in, looked at the results. I was like, holy smokes, man. I'm like in the bottom 10%. Everybody smashed them. So the next day I ran all the way, I guess it would be downriver. Um, wait, it would be, yeah, downriver. And I'm like, oh, this is how everybody's catching. They're all over the place there. But that was a neat fishery. I've never been there, so I was looking forward to that one. The Columbia River was a heartbreaker for me because I did well the first day, sitting in the 11th. Um, it was, as you guys know, it was windy as heck. I couldn't really stay on my spots, smallmouth fishing. Went largemouth fishing, caught a four-pounder first fish I caught in there back at Casey's Pond. I'm like, oh boy, we're gonna have a good bag today. Well, caught a limit. Left there around noon, and I left with two one and a half pound fish. Okay. And remember, the first day I caught 15 smallmouths over two pounds. Well, in three hours, man, I never caught another two-pound smallmouth and I missed a cut by half a pound, or missed a check by half a pound. So it's frustrating in that way. Um, going back to the California Delta, man, I started off with a nine-pounder the first day in the BAM Delta event. Yeah, set myself up for a pretty good day. My co-angler was super cool, so I want to hook him up. That tournament, man. Um, I wasn't casting at two pounders. So every time I saw a two-pounder on the band, I'm like, dude, cast at him. I'll wait for a few minutes for ya. I let him cast at at least 22-pound fish. Well, to end the day, I came in with two one and a half pounders of six masters, but I was sitting pretty good, right? Second day I go out there, stuck like an 8-6, uh, another decent fish, had three one and a half pounders. And I want to run up to whites, I haven't checked those fish yet. The first fish I cruised up to wasn't locked. The second fish, because the overcast on my graph, I couldn't really see where my waypoint was. I was zoomed out just enough where I'm oh crap, I'm right on top of the fish. I put my poles down. It was already too late at that time. Lifted up my poles, went up as soon as I passed the fish. My co-angler casted to him, caught it, and it was almost a four-pounder. Well, I missed the top 10 cut by half a pound. And I had three one and a half pounders. So if I would have just caught one more two-pounder, I would have, you know, made the top ten cut there. I would have cashed a nice check at the Columbia River event. So it's it's fuzgrading, but hey, I've been doing this long enough to know that that's fishing. Sometimes that's gonna happen. Um, you know, some I I mean, look, it's fishing. You need to get lucky, but you also need to have skill to capitalize on the luck. It was just a luck factor, whether it's good luck, bad luck, it is what it is. Um, you know, I'm having a lot of fun fishing out west. I think the fishing out here is a lot better. And it's funny because driving the what the Columbia River is my furthest drive of the year. I'll be honest with you, I felt like a walk in the park.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

So it's so easy. Yeah. You're like, this is a nice, easy. I can do this in two days? Nice.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

No, I can do it in a I can do it in a day. I think uh I've driven well, I've driven 21 hours before, straight, but I think my limit's about 18 to be eight, 19, 19 to be safe. But I can do the Columbia River one shot if I wanted to. But it felt easy because what New York would be the equivalent of me going up to the Columbia River, making a U-turn, driving back, making a U-turn driving halfway. I mean, that's what it's like driving to New York Champlain.

SPEAKER_03 13:20

Gosh dang. Yeah. It's crazy, man. Yeah, crazy.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

That's what they say, dude. Part-time fisherman, full-time truck driver.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

Yeah, man. It's um I don't get me wrong, I I get what people say when like, man, that's a crazy drive because I used to be that guy. My brother started fishing regional level events before I did, and I thought he was it was crazy for him to drive 13 hours. I'm like, dude, you're driving 13 hours to go bass fishing. And then a couple years later, I joined him. And I remember that first, the first time I drove 13 hours, man, it took forever. And I remember leaving, I got like, I felt like a little bit of anxiety, you know, because it's like, oh my gosh, we gotta drive 13 hours back. And then you drive to Clear Lake is 15 hours, and then Shasta 17 hours, Timber River, what, 20 hours, and then you drive back east, go to Alabama is 26, 27 hours. So that 21-hour drive doesn't feel bad. The Delta 13 hours doesn't feel bad. So it's all perspective, man. Uh, but yeah, I enjoy out being out there on the road and just kind of clearing my head. You know, I work from home outside of uh fishing, I work from home, run an insurance brokerage right out of my office, out of my house. So I look forward to getting on the road and just clearing my head.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Yeah. It's funny that perspective, because I got a lot of buddies out of the Carolinas and Tennessee area, and they obviously fish the national stuff, and usually it's you know, Texas and East is where all the events are. Uh they're like, dang, dude, you drive 16, 18 hours to an event. And I'm sitting there on the phone with one of them the other day, and I'm like clocking out Wisconsin's our next one. I'm like, oh yeah, it's only 10 hours for this one. It's not bad at all. That's a quick drive. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Yeah, back in the day.

unknown 15:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Yeah, back in the day, I remember driving two and a half hours to Roosevelt seemed like forever. But now, right after the tournament, I just boogie on home. Like at the Columbia River, I left right after the tournament, drove to 10 15, woke up at 1 30, and got home like at 2 30 in the P PM or something like that. So I slept like three hours and I was fine. Road dogging, dude.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing that I think people too maybe don't realize as much. Obviously, the the push from west to east is such a big landscape. That's massive. But also just our western lakes, like we have such a big land mass, so it's spread out. Like if you live in like Tennessee or North Carolina, like your your region, you know, is pretty small. But like, yeah, like you're saying, I mean, uh, just Bailey, your same point. If it's under a 12-hour drive, I'm pumped. Like, yes, I see this is a good one.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Let's go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Yeah. Yeah. No, and that's what I mean. Like, like seeing somebody going and traveling back east and being the guy actually doing it, two different things. Because you're seeing it, you already have an idea that it's bad, but you're not accounting that I'm driving a truck at that time, my first two years. I'm driving a truck with 370 something thousand miles. I didn't know what was gonna break down, stuff going wrong all the time. The mental toll that it takes on you just to kind of keep it together and keep it going, and then you know, more often than not, things don't work out there at the tournament, so you just try to scratch that off and move on to the next, or trying to learn these different fisheries. And it was tough. I knew that my learning curve was just going to be slower because I live out west. I was okay with it, never complained about it, but I just knew it is what it is. Uh, there's guys out here like Brent Ayler that look up to um Brett Height that have done it from living from the West, and I was just hoping to be one of those guys as well. So I don't know, it's it's it's kind of weird because um it wasn't until iCast. I'm glad I went to ICAST this year. And to be honest with you guys, the first day was really uncomfortable for me being at just iCast, you know, because I knew that was that guy, and I mean my suspicions were confirmed when you know I'm sitting around talking to guys, and after five minutes, a guy that I don't even know comes up, hey man, I think SBS will happen to you, and just want to let you know that happened all week long. So uh, but it kind of lit a fire because there's a part of me that I don't think I'm done. There's more things I want to do back east, and um, hey, there's there's more than one Mount Everest, you know, which is the Bass Pro Tour. Talk to those guys at Major League Fishing and had a great time fishing um with major league fishing. So I'm gonna see if it's possible if I can fish both tours, the uh pro circuit and the super 60. So that's what I'm kind of shooting for next year, but I gotta sit down, really look at the schedules, talk with my partners, and just see if I can go do it.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

Heck yeah, dude. Dude, that's cool, man. Glad to hear that. Yeah, I uh I like the mindset there, and I I think it's really cool the guys swinging both, right? I mean, you got kind of Bryant Smith-ish, these guys running either two boats or they're flying and going back and forth across the country fishing both east and west. Um, so I'd love to see you do that and make that happen. Be a cool deal.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Yeah, again, it's just man, I felt like I was starting to understand some of those fisheries. My biggest nemesis are fishing for smallmouth up in New York, that region, and struggled the first like three times I was there and started cashing checks. Uh, Tennessee River is like my biggest nemesis. It seems like every time I go there, I'll find them good in practice and then they disappear, and I don't know where they went. Um, that's the Tennessee River and then Florida. You know, the Florida fish in Florida, they don't give a damn what you know about bass fishing. Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Be pretty accurate description.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Yeah, an entity as you're yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

I mean, they got a bass named Florida bass. You know, I'll give you a perfect example of what I'm talking about here. When I went out there, you know, doing research and talking to people, they tell you, hey man, make sure you throw that um speed worm. And I remember thinking, you want me to crank a worm? No, you guys can have it, man. I'm not doing that. So after three times of getting your teeth kicked in down there, you're like, let me try it. The first time I tried it, it caught 25 pounds on it. So now it's a part of the arsenal. I don't know why they eat it, but that's the only state I throw it in.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yep. You know, sounds about right. Yeah. Dude, talking about the bait stuff, you mentioned earlier with the West, like getting back to basic stuff. What's been kind of like your three mainstays for getting back to the basics this year when it comes to like technique stuff?

SPEAKER_02 20:15

Well, the first and foremost, it's hard to ignore you know what the bait I built my career on. Just a green pumpkin, five-inch senko. I've been been fishing a lot of tournaments out here at Lake Pleasant, the night fishing tournaments. I'm still throwing that thing. I'm catching about 90% of my fish that'll weigh in on a five-inch green pumpkin senko. You know, I'll catch small mouth, largemouth, post-spawn, summer fit, summertime fish on the ledges. Um, and again, that's my number one go to. If I need a limit, that's the bait I'm throwing. Uh, secondly, it's just, you know, a drop shot, morning dawn, or any of those variations of oxblood. Uh, it's hard to beat a rubber worm out west. And then, you know, the third thing is probably well, just the thing I picked up back east is throwing a minnow. Because I don't think a lot of guys really throw it as much and utilize it as much out west as they do back east. What do you think, Adam? Am I am I right on that?

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Man, here's my here's my take on the on the east to west thing. Because I've I've experienced at a smaller degree, um, east to west, but like I feel like whatever happens east, we are two years-ish behind. And so I think guys are now picking up on the minnow, right? Like, it's been a mainstay for me this year, flat out, right? Like, I've thrown a minnow a ton. Anytime I'm in smallmouth country, I'm I'm zipping a minnow around. Um, so like I think that I think that you're you're you're spot on as far as like it's behind. I would say less guys do it, but I would say at the super 60 level, so so last year was my First year of fishing the Super 60. And immediately I noticed like going from local tournaments or you know, even pro amps. Like I noticed like first thing I was like, oh, there's a lot more guys out here, right? Like, there's a lot more guys out. I'm like, guys, guys have figured out you know the forward facing better than where it's been, but I agree it's still behind what what we're seeing on the east. But I'd say the minnow's coming around, but it's it's still a little bit lacking. So the fish are dumb.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

You said the east is behind. I think um the east is ahead on the minnow.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

No, that's what I meant.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. Uh yeah, east is ahead.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

West is behind.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Yes, yeah. So it was funny back in the day, the West used to be ahead on right, eco rigs and drop shot and those little techniques. But now with I think with social media, YouTube, just you know, these kids. I mean, I was thinking about this the other day. I remember when I was like, you know, a teenager and all the way up to my mid to late 20s. I had all the time in the world to get on YouTube, watch videos, just soak up as much information as possible. I rarely get to do that anymore. I mean, it's always something business related, you know, for the you know, the kids having an event that I gotta be at, basically uh adulting, right? We just don't have time for it. And I rarely get to sit down and just scour the internet watching YouTube videos and uh these kids that you know are fortunate enough not to have that responsibility yet. I mean, they're just learning so much faster than we are.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

I think there's another caveat too is that a lot of your your new technique, Japanese influence, they're just flying straight to the southeast because that's where the hotbeds are and your route to the big leagues like Fastmaster MLF, and you see guys starting to connect with those folks. Like I I know a great example like Jake Maddox is closer than Kenta Kamura and kind of can get in on the ins and outs of what's you know what's on the horizon, what sneaky stuff there is. Um you see that happen like the Rob G's and stuff of the world, they're kind of connecting with these guys and they're kind of getting in on the scoop before the rest of the country does and adds to it.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Uh Kenta and I, we were um, you know, we're both a part of the Bass Cat team, but we were both running that champion 203. Funny thing is, I never really taught to him out there when I first saw him because I didn't know he spoke English. And one day he creases up to me and just talking, hey man, you know, what's the top speed you're getting out of that boat for Mercury? Because he runs the Yamaha, so we got to talk in and became friends after that. I remember like going over to his boat, checking out the stuff he had just on his deck. I was like, man, there's some swim baits, some stuff. I mean, just electronics, how everything's set up. I mean, it's sneaky stuff. It was pretty cool. So, you know, I'm sure the fishing in Japan is a lot different than the US. And, you know, just kind of like the urchin that came out. I mean, I can't believe that thing's been around since two, what, 2005? Yeah, 20 plus years. Picked up over here, and yeah, I mean, you can't find a tournament angler that doesn't at least have a few or is looking for some.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

Dude, at the at the Columbia River, um, awesome tackle shop. Three, is it three? What's what's the name of that tackle shop tie that we were we were at? Oh man. For a meeting. Three three rivers, is that right?

SPEAKER_02 25:32

I think it is, yeah. I think you're right. Something rivers.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

Anyways, those dudes, it's super cool. For all Super 60 guys, we were limited, but you could you could buy Koikis, uh, a 17 and a and a full cast. You're limited to one of one of each. Um, so you but like that was that was a neat deal. I was like, dang, these guys, those do that's a sneaky tackle shop that you wouldn't expect in Washington that has some awesome stuff and a great online presence too.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yeah, I was I was going through whoever runs that store does a really good job because they got a lot of good stuff that I think your uh weekend angler, I would say, wouldn't know about. And I was I was really impressed by the selection. They really know what's up, and uh they treated us real well there. But how many of those baits do you think ended up on eBay?

SPEAKER_03 26:25

It's a good question, man. To tell you what, mine are in my box, but I I wouldn't be surprised. You're you're not wrong.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Yeah. But it got hustled some sort of way. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I refuse to do it because man, I I got this bone to pick with bait flippers, man. Just just leave it up to the fisherman to fish, man. Why do you why are you making everybody's life so hard? Yeah, you know, because you know they're buying up all the inventory and then just posting on eBay. I mean, I remember just what not long ago, I was watching the frog hook, the troll car frog hook. It was a hundred dollars a pack. I'm like, what are you guys doing, man?

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yeah, you know, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Yeah, yeah, that was that was wild.

unknown 27:10

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

So anyway, um, yeah, the you guys want to talk about the summertime fishing here in Arizona?

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yeah, let's dive into that, man.

unknown 27:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

What does that look like? I mean, first of all, how do you stay alive? Like it's August, man.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

I'll tell you exactly how we stay alive. You either fish late in the evening and fish at night, or you get up super early and get to the lake right at the right at you know, sun up. You launch your boat, fish, and try to get off the water by 10, 11 at the latest before the crazies show up. I mean, the wake boaters here, man, they got you doing caperdicts, you know, just constantly throughout the day if you don't get off early and it's super hot. So you can either jump in, deal with those guys, hide in a pocket, but those fish don't exactly set up in the back of a cove this time of year. They're basically on main lake stuff, points, humps, structure out there. Um, if you don't have good electronics, my tip is just go fish bluff walls here, either from your boat to the bluff wall. Just throw a drop shot at the wall or a spoon or whatever you want to throw, they're gonna be right there. And you'll have a lot of you'll catch a lot of fish doing that. So our best lake right now for like quality, okay, would be Roosevelt, without a doubt. I mean, there's so many 10 plus pound fish weighed in this year. Um, and you know, my brother just caught a 10-pounder to win at an event a month ago, and you know, that Roosevelt reminds me a lot like ledge fishing. Okay, the water's going down there and they got a lot of ledges out there. So if you just go use their electronics, I happen to have a little rant, just go graph and you'll see schools of fish. Um, ideally, you want to see them right on top of the ledge. And you know, they got uh, I guess you guys call them uh um ditches. You know, if you graph a ditch kind of going on on a flap, a lot of times they'll corral bait fish or their uh gizzard shad, they'll be feeding and schooling up in those areas as well. But yeah, you just go, if you don't have electronics, just go fish points, you know. Um, and sometimes it's a timing deal. You'll cruise up on the point, get healthy real quick. The baits that were throwing out there, anything from a drop shot, tennis, worms, you got any of those urchin baits, big magnum spoons, jigs, carolina rigs. I mean, they all work. Just think ledge fishing back east and apply everything you know about ledge fishing to Lake Roosevelt, you'll do fine this time of year. Um the lakes below that, which is Apache Canyon Swirl, you probably see a lot of big fish caught at those lakes on social media. Uh, the nice thing about those lakes is the water comes in from Roosevelt, and those lakes are fairly stable, so they don't really go down or up much. I think the variation is probably six, seven feet at the most. And uh yeah, you just go fish all the points, the humps, the artificial habitats, you can throw a minnow. Um, and those fish, man, they are so big. Well, let me back up a second. We had a golden algae fish kill back in, I want to say 2014, if I remember correctly. And there's a uh group of anglers here, United Anglers, I think. They stopped that place with F1, F1 Bass. And when they, I mean, it did not take them long to establish there. And let's just say our fishing was so good at Saworo, social media careers were made overnight. I mean, you can go out there and throw a bubblegum catch, you know, seven pounders. Uh let's to give you an idea how good it was. I took my boss at the time, his daughter that's never fished. Um I think she caught two seven-pounders and like six, five pounders that day. And my boss caught an eight-pounder that day, just throwing Yamamoto St. Those wacky rigging. Uh those fish are a lot smarter now, though. And they're harder to catch, but you hit it up on the right day. I mean, I I don't know any other late that I can go out there and catch maybe a 20 to 24 pound bag. If you call me, I'm gonna tell you I have a I had a horrible day.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Because we're shooting for 30 pounds here now.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

That's freaking awesome.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Do you think Arizona's the most underrated big bass state in the country right now?

SPEAKER_02 31:51

You know, I do. I really do. I was I was talking to a buddy about that not long ago, and you know, heck, I didn't know neither how good the fishing is here until I traveled the country. And I mean, you know, with the salt river chain, especially Roosevelt, because Roosevelt had gone all the way. I mean, it was up high, so you got the two rivers that flow in, the Tonal and the Salt. I mean, they had so many places that they can hide. And now that the water is lower, it you know, those fish kind of got pushed out of the river, and we're finding them on the main lake right now. And the I'll give you an example. Two years ago, I fished a tournament with my buddy uh calm Doc David, cruised up to a point, and I saw like a massive school just suspending off the point. I didn't think that they were bass because the school is so big, but I also didn't think they were corp neither, because usually, if they're a school carp, we throw out there, they'll kind of spook off. These fish didn't spook off. I was like, maybe they're catfish. And well, they didn't look fuzzy on my grass because you know I I dial my stuff in pretty hot. I can see the interference line on a catfish and see the fuzziness coming from the returns because I'm bouncing off slime, right? So I'm like, that's weird. They look like bass, but that's way too big of a school to be bass. Well, I notice that every time we got into a flurry is when that school pushed up close to the point. We caught 29 pounds that day to win the tournament, but we only caught like I think nine fish that day. Well, later on I found out that that was bass. I was sitting on a school of five to seven hundred fish that I would estimate to be five to eleven pounds, had no idea. Um, but yeah, that's I mean, that's how big some of the schools are if you hit the right area at the right time. And my buddy TJ signed up for a tournament that very same day. I think he went out there and caught like 38 pounds on that school. Wow, yeah. So if you uh if you want a shot at winning an event at Roosevelt during the summer, usually you're gonna need over 30 pounds now, which is crazy. Because back then, 20 like just four years ago, it'd be just 20 pounds, 25 pounds, and you're probably gonna win. But now it's gonna take the upper 20s to mid-30s and an occasional almost 40 pound bag to win there.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Holy smokes! Are we talking numbers too? Like you are you running numbers of lights?

SPEAKER_02 34:29

Yeah, you get fish all over the spectrum there, a bunch of 12-inchers, 15-inchers. Um, for some I haven't caught uh got in on the three pounders much this time of year. It's either going to be like a two and a half or a five plus there right now. Uh, but I can tell you two years ago, I got on a really good flip bite up the river. We had 26 pounds, 21, 22 pounds, got second place three times in a row, but each one of those days I threw back multiple 17-pound bags, and 17 would have got you third or fourth at each one of those events. And I was flipping with Ford Facing Sonic when I figured that you can actually flip with that thing, you know. So I was going around flipping at these trees. I'll see the fish right underneath the uh log that you couldn't see with your vis your your eyes, but you can see it on my my active target. So I was just flipping to these fish and targeting fish that no one else fished for. It was like super fun.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

Wait, walk walk me through that a little bit. I am I'm not super good shallow with forward facing. Uh-huh. Like, are you are you still running your depth pretty pretty uh high? Like, how do you how do you set up to do that differently?

SPEAKER_02 35:46

All right. So with the depth and distance all relative to what you're doing, and whatever I'm doing, keep this thing in mind, which I call it aspect ratio. Okay, so the biggest mistake that I see a lot of guys do out there, they want to utilize their whole screen. They maybe in the morning they're fishing 25 feet of water, the distance at 100, they set their depth to their auto depth might jump to 35, 40. You're you're okay. But when you go cruise up shallow to like eight feet of water, your screen's gonna automatically adjust to 10 to 15 depth. Well, if your distance is at a hundred, well, everything's gonna be stretched out. That fish is gonna be stretched out so much that you don't know what that fish is. Better explain, I set my depth and distance so that a fish looks like a quarter, a nickel, a penny, a dime. If I catch something that looks like a penny and it's a two-pounder, well, I know that fish is around two pounds the next time I see a penny. If I catch a fish the size of a nickel that looks like a nickel, that's a four-pounder. Well, next time I run into a nickel, that's gonna be about a four-pounder. Well, when you stretch out your image too much, now you get you get to pick between a pencil, a crayon, and a chop. You don't know, right?

SPEAKER_03 37:10

True, man.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

Right? So um I remember I was fishing. I'll walk you guys through it. So, how we find fish in the river, we just cover water, man. You just flip everything that you see until you get a bite. When you get a bite, you slow down. And you're looking for you're hoping to run into that magic tree. And that magic tree, I've won a lot of tournaments just finding that one tree. It takes one tree to do well back there. I remember just giving an example. My brother and I found that one magic tree. We caught 27 fish out of that one little tree in like six feet of water. For some reason, they just school up around that tree for whatever reason. So I took my brother back there, we were flipping, and I flipped into this, uh, a flapping hog into this tree, set the hook, two and a half pounder, decent fish, putting them in the box, made the sand flip again, caught another fish, and then two feet on the left side of that tree, flipped over there, missed another one. So he had his forward-facing sonar unit on. We never even bothered looking at that thing. So I was like, I wonder how many fish are over there. So I just panned over. I was surprised. Ten feet away, I can see seven of them sitting underneath that tree. And every time I flip in there, one will look at it, but he knows we're there, he's not biting. So we marked that tree, left, found another tree. We caught three out of that tree, but when I panned around, I saw that there was a bunch more sitting off the tree, maybe in a log underneath that I couldn't see with my eyes. I'll flip over there. What if you look at the video? It looks like I'm flipping open water, but I threw over uh a log underneath the water, and those fish were. I mean, as soon as they see your lure, they'll bite. And anyway, finally got to dial in my graph. We're fishing eight to twelve feet of water. I can't pitch or flip a hundred feet, so I just set my distance to 70. What's half a 70? 35, right? So the goal is I'll try to leave it at 35, but again, my screen was too high, so I changed it to 30, and eventually I went with 25. But remember, I'm only using half of my screen now. But I want the goal was to keep my aspect aspect ratio uh in a way where a fish is still uh a manageable looking blonde. Okay, because I'll give you another tip. If I pan at a fish and I see one little interference line on my graph, I don't even throw out that fish because I know that's a catfish. Okay, so if a catfish is looking straight at you, uh his return is gonna be bright. It almost looks like a bass. But if I pan left and right of that fish and I see one little spike, I know that that's not a bass. I never see a spike on top of a bass, so I don't even throw out that fish anymore. Now, if a catfish is swimming left to right, I can immediately tell because it looks fuzzy to me. And I see that interference line. Well, it's bounced it offline, so your returns aren't going to be as strong. So that's how you're able to tell what species it is. And when I figured out that aspect ratio deal, that was pretty much a game changer for me as far as understanding a forward-facing sonar and how to set your depth distance properly. And if you look, if you see, if you watch on live, any of these kids got that alpaca-looking haircut with a flat top.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Ropac, rope.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

All right. And they're fishing shallow water. I want you to pay attention to the forward-facing sonar screen. You'll see that they're using like the top eighth of their screen if they're in shallow water. Well, you're they're utilizing aspect ratio as well. You're only using the top eighth, top quarter, but everything you need to see is there. You can see your bait, you can see what you're fishing and what and the size of that fish. Who cares if you can't see your whole screen?

SPEAKER_03 41:10

You know. So so to just so your depth is low, you're bringing in your distance. I understand that the because the problem that I've always had, right, that guys run into, I think, is when you get shallow, if you start dropping it to 15 feet or less, I find that then it just blows out and you can't tell, you know, what a bass looks like. It all looks big. You know, you see like a two-pounder and it's it's a five and a half, it looks like a giant fish. Because because I've lowered my depth but kept my distance out, you're saying you're bringing both of those in to then mimic the same image that you would out.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

Yeah, you have to understand how the technology works too. So the top beam, at least on an active target, it's actually a lower frequency. And then as you get to, I want to say, say 45 degrees on down, straight in front of the boat, that's your high frequency beam. That's where you get the most definition. So have you ever seen a fish that out from 95 feet, it looks super big, and as you get closer and closer, it kind of shrinks. That's what you're seeing. So, yeah, um, so keep that in mind. But like, yeah, if I'm fishing five, I mean, back in April, I took my buddy Cliff out to Sororo. We caught, I don't know, he thinks we caught over 50. I say we caught maybe between 40, 45, or something like that. That's five went 37 pounds, just mashed them, right? And I was using forward-facing sonar in two to five feet of water. Wow. Yep. So my distance was only set out to 70, my depth was at 25. I'm only using the top, like tiny bit of my screen, maybe an eighth button. I mean, everything I need to see was in there. So if you lower your depth, remember, if you keep the distance the same, it's gonna stretch out the back of that fish higher and higher and higher. So to bring that that his back on down, you have to well change the distance. If you lower the distance, it starts going like this, right? And you just gotta find something that works for you in whatever situation that you're fishing in.

unknown 43:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

That's juice, man.

SPEAKER_03 43:27

Yeah, appreciate you sharing that. That's super helpful to understand.

SPEAKER_02 43:30

Yeah, to like like you know, you know, my my deal is not to set it and forget it's not an easy bake oven. You're gonna change. You're gonna need a change.

SPEAKER_03 43:40

It's not an easy bake oven.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

Yeah. The like I use a lot in grass now. I don't know if you guys do that, but if I go to like the grass, the edge of the grass, I'll sit there and turn my contrast down until the grass starts to look translucent. That's when I have the right setting. So the I can see through the grass, I can see the fish behind the grass sometimes now. Right?

unknown 44:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

And then if I'm out fishing for floaters, I'll crank that contrast all the way up so I can see my lure at 99 feet. I mean, I have my settings down to where I can see like a three by a two by three piece of wood floating out there on top of the surface at 95 feet now. But my stuff is dialed. I was gonna say, dude, you're locked in. That's awesome. Yeah, a lot of people don't realize, and I know there's a lot of confusion out there. Heck, I was confused. I took I took an interest in this, and if you guys know anything about me, once I take an interest in something, man, I I don't let it go. You know, the whole thing of say barometric pressure, dude. I studied that thing for like 18 years hard.

SPEAKER_03 44:54

Like dude, I listened to some of your old podcasts when I was, I mean, like back in the day, just just eating as I mean was obsessed as obsessed with fishing could be, but you the your barometric pet or barometric pressure stuff was juice. You I mean you did a great job explaining.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

Well, I figured out more stuff. I literally stopped studying it three years ago now because I felt like I got to the point where I okay, I'm satisfied with the answer I was looking for. Um, because I was like probably that annoying kid that always asks why, you know, something happens, why did that happen? And if I can understand the why factor, it gives me a lot of confidence in whatever it is that I'm doing. I always kind of knew that the bare measure pressure deal was a big thing, and I'll tell you what, every time, because when I'm on these long drives, sometimes I'll just plug in bare measure pressure on YouTube, watch random videos, what other people have to say. I can tell you most of it's wrong. Yeah, so you'll see this. The most common one is if yeah, I want my bare measure pressure above this number is considered high, and the below this number is good for fishing. No, it's not because you're you're totally missing how it works. Barometric pressure is a measurement from basically the the weight of the air onto the surface of the water at sea level. Well, that's the furthest different uh distance to the sky. So let's say the average barometric pressure at least uh sea levels, we'll call it 30 inches in mercury, right? Well, if you go to clear lake or any other lake that is a higher elevation, the average barometric pressure there might only be 27. So it never hits that 30 uh mark that people are talking about. So it's all relative to elevation. I don't care what the bare measure pressure is, I just want to know when it's going down, right? That's when the bike windows open, uh opens up for you. Uh when it's going up, yeah, you're fishing slow, you're fishing methodical, you're fishing where you think the fish should be like on structure and stuff like that. But when it's dropping, that's when you can burn a chatterbait down the bank and just try to run into them. And when you run into them, a lot of them are gonna be chasing and biting, right? So that's the biggest thing about the bear mesh pressure deal. Now, the whole electronics deal, um I noticed that everybody's running a like a lot of my close buddies at the time is running a C Clear harness. I didn't, and I do all my own rigging us, so I saw the wires, how they're rigged. I mean, we should have plenty of wire, and but I was getting like these interference lines on my side scan sometimes, like these little white dots interference line. And I got to talk to Nathan over at C Clear, and he was telling me about like what a ground loop is. That's the first time I ever heard it. So I looked into it, studied up on it, and I said, you know what, screw it. I'm gonna get a C Clear harness and install it in my boat. Dude, when I installed that harness, I was like, holy smokes! I mean, my grass cleared way up, wasn't even close. I immediately I can tell. So that's when I was like, Man, why did it do that? So I took a deep dive, three years looking at this stuff, setting my boat up different ways, and I can tell the difference um each way as well, and this is where the confusion comes in from. I'm hope, hoping I don't upset anybody I work with um or anybody out there. But I've had some really credible people that design the equipment, and they're telling me, Ty, that's not how it works. 12 volts is 12 volts as long as it's clean 12 volts. I'm sitting there like you kind of contradicted yourself, right? Because there's clean 12 volts and there's dirty 12 volts. How you rig up your electronics totally matters. Okay. Um, I've seen boats rigged up with a fuse box bus bar versus the clean C clear harness that only uses the pulsing clips that that bypasses any potential ground differences. Um, it's just much clearer using the pulsing clips because you're eliminating what can cause interference when your electronics have different differences in in ground. Um it might be 0.0001 using like a bus bar or a fuse box between one unit to the next, but I can tell you your unit's gonna pick it up. And our units are so sensitive, you can get within a hundred and I notice that when I get within 130 feet, 150 feet of another boat, I start getting his interference from his sonars. So you can't tell me that those little tiny differences, it doesn't matter, it does matter, 100% matters. Uh so anyway, I ran a um my last year's boat, I ran a 12 volt lithium, works great for most of the day, like 80% of the day, works great, no issues with it. But I noticed at the end of the day, I wasn't able to see my bait as good, but I was overlaying voltage. And if I'm not running around somewhere, I determined the number to be about 12.7, 12.8 volts, is when I start noticing the difference between my ability to see the bait, and you know, the arguments would be oh, well, you got more stuff in the water, you know, later at noon, boats running around. No, it's very consistent because if I start my day at the same lake, my batteries are fresh, I can see my bait clearance day. Now I'm pretty aware of pollen, things in the water, current, wind, all that stuff. Um, basically making it more difficult to see my bait. So I'm aware of all those changes, but it's something that I constantly see when I set up other people's boats. I'll give you a perfect example here, two of them. I was fishing out on my buddy Daniel Eliza's boat at Apache. We found a minnow bite, and we were fishing artificial habitat, it was around one o'clock, and I had a hard time seeing my lure, so I turned over to Daniel. I was like, hey man, you have an Asian battery or something? He's like, No, I got a lithium. What really? I made three more casts. I said, dude, something's wrong with your unit. And he has the same thing I have at the target. So I overlaid his voltage, and sure enough, he was at like 12.4. So how did I know if 12 volts is just 12 volts? How did I know that something was wrong with your voltage before I even checked? There was another gentleman, Scott Holland. I talked to him a couple weeks ago. I talked to him on Friday, and anyway, I've been meeting up to meet up with them to adjust his units. So I told him I was gonna be at Seworo on Sunday, and I was just asking him about his setup. Do you have a lithium? We got an AGM, what do you have? He told me you had an AGM. So I told him, like, hey man, running the AGM, it's gonna be flying first two and a half, three hours into the morning. But after three hours, dude, you're gonna have a hard time seeing your bait because your voltage, you're gonna have so much voltage drop. A lot of people don't believe me. Ask Scott. Basically, everything I described about his setup, what was going to happen. I ran into him at 10 o'clock at Sorro, jumped in his boat, down in his unit. I mean, I got that thing dialed. But the problem is I can only set his distance out to 80 feet. At 80 feet, you can see your lure. At 100, you could have. I called it out before I even talked to him. Okay, so anyway, how the equipment's supposed to work, you know, talking to some of these engineers, I think there's something that they don't understand along with me. I I don't know what's happening, but I do know something consistent. When I pay attention to the volatiles, there's definitely a correlation to you know how well you can see your bait. And remember, I told I said that number 12.7, 12.8. I saw an advertisement with the guys over at Powerhouse Lithium. He had an ad, like, you know, you're trying to keep your volatility between 12.7 and 12.8. So I know those guys know what they're talking about. Um, they're seeing the same thing I'm seeing. I've never even talked to them. Yeah, so anyway, I know uh this isn't a forward-facing sonar. I don't have the hair for it. I do have the top.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

It's okay, it's okay. No rope hat, though. No rope hat.

SPEAKER_03 53:31

I was gonna say, wait, dude, that's what we're naming this show. I don't have the hair for forward facing, but but I can talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

Yeah. Yeah, I kind of nerd out on the technical side of the fishing stuff, you know, and and yeah, it's uh forward facing sonar, it's it's been uh kind of like a thorn in my butt. You know, it's like you know, you know, I I don't know, you felt this Adam at the Columbia River? When it got really bad around noon, I left uh Casey's pond around noon. I'm just trimming the motor out a little bit. I stay on top of these waves because this be a spear one. I don't know if I can catch another fish without my forward facing sauna.

SPEAKER_03 54:16

Dude, it was Bailey, it was big. Like, I mean big. Like I luckily that where we took off was pretty protected, but that's the first day I've ever and like look been on some big water, and I know it wasn't what almost saves you a little bit is the current is is so strong that it makes those waves top out, so they're really tall, but it keeps them tight. So like they might be four footers, but like you can clear them with a 21-foot boat to get to the next. But like that's the first time ever. I I hit it like middle of the day too. Like, I didn't go down until it was nasty, so I hit it at the worst time. And I'm going and I'm like, you know, like the saxophone music's getting louder, and I'm just like, this shit's getting crazy. Yeah, and and and I'm just sitting there going, and I'm just like, this might be the day, like seriously, where someone doesn't make it back, like someone gets Coast Guard called or something, like and it and it cleared up and it got better as the day went on, but like it was big. That was no fun.

SPEAKER_02 55:17

Yeah, I I went down a couple waves where I got that roller coaster feeling in my stomach, and it's hard for me to get that. I've been doing some pretty nasty stuff. And of course, you turn on the uh the footage from your DJI, and it looks like a calm day out there. The video never does a good job picking it up. So I'm like, yeah, I'm not gonna post that. It's not gonna get views. Right.

SPEAKER_03 55:39

But you're gonna post it and be like, it was the worst day out there. People are like, dude, it doesn't even look bad. You're just having a you know.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Yeah, that's it's when you get those saltwater offshore guys and they're like, oh, you don't know chop. It's like that scene from Wolfle Wall Street. They're like, you don't know shit about chops.

SPEAKER_02 55:53

Yeah. Well I will tell you the coolest thing that happened out there is saving that osprey, man. You know, I don't know if you guys saw that video. I was just fishing, and I saw something. Yeah, I saw something streaming on the water, and it was like when it like made eye contact with me, it started swimming right for me. So I'm like, is he really trying to get in my boat? So um, yeah, I just got a little close. Well, I just kind of scooted away just to make sure that he was turning towards me. And yeah, he was asking, he's pretty much asking for help at that point. And yeah, I I let him get in the boat, help him in the boat, stood there 45 minutes. I kind of see him kind of you know going back and forth, like you know, shrugging his shoulders, getting ready to take off, and then he jumps right into the water and then starts swimming towards the shoreline. Well, he swam about 25 feet, makes a U-turn. He must have said, Ah, hell no, that's too far. Get back in, have to help him back in the boat, and it was on my boat for another hour, hour and 15 minutes, and finally I saw him kind of do the same thing, going back and forth, chirping, and swam for it. So, I mean, hopefully the the little dude made it, but I think um I think he he tried to fly in kind of like my first tournament Okeechobee. Sometimes you gotta spread your wings to see if you can fly. In my case, I landed on a rock.

SPEAKER_04 57:17

Like Yeah, that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

That was a sick video. Uh I was totally when I saw it open, I saw it was you that posted it. I was waiting for you to say something like it was Randy Howell's spirit animal following you around or something. Dude, your Randy memes. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 57:36

I appreciate your comedy, dude. It cracks me up.

SPEAKER_02 57:38

Yeah, it was getting kind of uh tiring like this year. I guess I wasn't in the mood for it. Because every time I posted a Randy Howell meme, there's a bunch of people that really don't know what's going on. And after answering questions for three years, hey, Randy, there's no beef between Randy and I. I mean, these people are messaging, right? And and they think that there's something going on. Look, I will say Randy's got some raw fans. I wish I had some fans like that that got his back. But Randy's a great guy, we're good friends, and the story behind that was uh I was actually scrolling through social media and I saw a meme about you know, if the cop has this kind of haircut, you are 110% getting a ticket. So I just changed it over to Randy Howe, posted it, posted great, and then I just started, you know. Sometimes I just picked a topic and challenged myself how many jokes I can crack up about that topic, and after three years, I still haven't ran out of jokes. Um you guys should see. Ask Ken Maw. Because Ken Maw is my um my PR guy, if you will, whether he likes it or not. I'll send a lot of memes to him, say, hey, can I post this? He's like, nope. Ken Maw's accent, too. Nope. Nope. But you know, I love Ken, man. You hear the voice. Yeah, he he's man, he's he's my voice of reason. Um and yeah, I mean, I met over Randy at La Crosse, we had dinner, and he told him he actually thanked me for all the uh exposure that he was getting. I mean, him, his whole family loves it, so he's like, Yeah, man, keep going. I'm like, you sure, Randy? You have no idea what you're signing up for. If anybody knows, I'm way better at talking smack than I am at fishing.

SPEAKER_01 59:31

Dude, that should have been dude, that would have been a golden opportunity where it's like you guys just meet on the water for like a 1v1 and just like make it the act of hey man, I'm sick of you posting memes about me, and then you just you guys, you know, down from there.

SPEAKER_02 59:48

Yeah, I'll he'll began to do it, man. I I enjoy like, you know, talking to him sometimes. And hell, there was a video. Uh where was he at? The pat whatever tournament Jason Christie won. And Laurant sent me a video. He actually tagged me in that video, uh, name dropped me in that video because I spent an hour and 15 minutes talking to him, and I was telling him about the aspect ratio deal. And yeah, help Randy, you know, just so if you guys are not utilizing that, I mean that is such a big one, and that's just my formula. Depth should be half your distance, and then you can go down a setting or two, but don't go any more than two, right? So, um, whether you look at it like as a third or a half of your distance, that's that's where you need to be. Um, and then of course there's other tricks as well. I mean, I'm running a 16-volt volt tub battery this year, and the reason why I'm running a 16 is my units don't need all 16 volts. I'm just trying to keep that voltage above 12.7, 12.8. And you know, for guys that like I found out a lot of these younger guys out there that are considered forward-facing sonar wizards, know what they're doing. They're running two 12 volts in parallel. Has nothing to do with the having enough amp hours at the end of the day. They're just trying to keep the voltage up above that threshold so they can see their lure and things that they need to. So I might have uh pissed some people off out there by dropping that info, but of course, you know what helps though? That social media guy that has that's gonna point out everything wrong with what you're saying, and so that's not how it works. My AGM power powers up, yeah. You keep using it, buddy. You know, uh I mean uh it only helps me that you are, you know, um past learning. Because and again, on the other hand, I was just like him. Oh, my AGM is just fine, man, everything works. Uh I'll tell you guys the funniest story. I was at I think Wachita, Ford Facing Sonar event. Every all week long, I didn't find them floating until about 10 o'clock. Okay. After 10 o'clock, I thought they swam down to the timber or something. I couldn't find these fish. But I do remember that my next spot was 20 minutes away, drove 20 minutes, dropped my trolling motor down. I see them, but I don't only see them for like 20 minutes. Dude, went on all week, had no idea. Of course, I just went up shallow, being you know, one of the older guys, throwing the swim bait and stuff, and you know, I caught enough bucks up shallow to keep me up shallow. So anyway, I screwed up that event. Everybody at the house did well. They scoped all day long and you know, chased floaters all day long. Uh, I didn't realize what was happening. At around 10 o'clock, I couldn't see past 70, 80 feet, right? I could see everything closer. I remember I couldn't even see my bait when I made a cast past 70 feet. But when I ran 20 minutes across the lake, my batteries just got charged enough where when I dropped that trolling motor, I could see for a little bit. So that's what happens with AGM. I mean, that was gosh, three, three, two and a half, three years ago that that event happened. So that's why I got in the lithium train, and I remember all these guys telling me I need to run into lithium, keep my battery up, C clear harness. I thought they were just trying to sell me stuff. Well they were, but there's some truth to it too. So let's keep it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:31

They were, but yeah, yeah, so good stuff, man. Uh really appreciate the deep dive. What I love about this show is we never know where something is is gonna go. Um, and uh, and man, love to love to hear your prowess on the forward-facing uh stuff, and I think some some valuable information for people out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:54

Yeah, I didn't realize that I I made a video setting up my system. I figured out the uh the ping sync thing for all my transducers because the one little sentence I saw, someone said you can enable ping sync between your two active targets and other transducers. So I was like, and other transducers, let me try to read it up that way. And went out to the lake, man. I was tickled to death that I figured out how to ping sync all my transducers so they're all dancing on the same beat. So I have no interference. Okay, now if you're gonna do that, I will warn you guys if you are out chasing fish at say Lanier, where it's 200 feet out in the middle, yeah, you're gonna want to turn your down scan, side scan, and 2D off because it's waiting for that signal to bounce all the way down to 200 feet and come back. You're gonna have a lot of lag on your forward-facing sonar. So when I'm past 30 feet, I just turn it off. So it's just something to be aware of, but it does give you a clean image. If you're gonna set up your boat, definitely recommend that C clear harness. And while you're at it, you want to make sure the one of the biggest mistakes that I see a lot of people do is their side scan transducer, that's a big one. Um, I remember I was sitting at a tournament at Apache Lake just talking to another guy about it, and I was looking at the boats. I want to say 90% of them, about 90% of them were installed in properly. If you look at your transducers, your side can transcan transduce in the back, and it's somewhat leveled with the bottom of your hole, it's wrong. You want it to be angled up a little bit to compensate for boat lift. You want that thing as leveled as possible to get the best image, right? So that's something I figured out just like five years ago, and it makes a 90 day difference when you uh set your stuff up properly. So, uh, anyway, made a video about my setup. People are impressed with how it looked. I mean, I was out there just 10 minutes tuning. My stuff shot the video real quick for Lawrence. Little did I know, I signed up to be the West Coast IT guy. I probably got hundreds of phone calls and messages since then. But I've also helped a ton of people set up their units and get their dialogue in. So anybody got questions, they can reach out to me. Um, I'll be I'm here to help.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:20

So hell yeah, dude. Right on. Yeah, it's juice. Just when you think you know everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:28

Yeah, there's a lot to know. I'm there's I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff I don't know, um, but that's the type of person I am. I I I and I don't want to be past you know, learning. There's always something else that you can learn, and that's I guess what's kept my passion for fishing all these years. I mean, the uh the whole urchin deal is the most recent one. Um, you know, I work with Copper State Taco, they're one of the first taco shops to get those baits in. And I remember the owner David was telling me, hey man, you might want to pick up some, they're gonna be hard to find real soon. So I'll grab four of them. I walked around the store three times. I'm like, what am I doing? They're 20 bucks a pop. I threw them back. Kept living my life, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:13

Oh no, little did you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:16

Oh no, he was right, and then yeah, uh, when I got on that train a little late, but when I first got on it, literally caught a seven and a half pounder, my second cast, caught 26 pounds in four hours. Took my son out. Um, I saw three fish swimming out there. He missed these fish by 30 feet. Well, I assume swim over there and eat it anyway. So it was like live bait, man. But now it's a lot harder to catch these fish, so you gotta change the size, the color, your presentation, and that's the nice thing about these baits, the urchin baits, because our fish, I'll argue every fish in our lease I've already seen it. And I talked to a lot of my East Coast friends, and they're shocked to hear how I'm catching them. You know, would you say, let me ask you guys this would you say most of your fish on the urchin style baits are on top of the fish, like a minnow, like a jerk bait, or would you say it's below the fish?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:17

Top.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:19

I would say, I would say top. I will admittedly tell you guys right now, like I have caught fish on the urchin um even since as early as January, February. But like I don't, I'm not dialed in with it. Like I catch fish on it and stuff, but like some of these guys that are just so locked in on it are you know, I've caught some letting it, if they're not gonna eat it, I've had it let it fall and eat it on the bottom like a jig. Yeah. Um, that kind of a thing. But I would say most of the time they're still coming up and eating it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:49

On top. Yeah, that's how it was last summer here. I mean, you just gotta get it close. It was like the A-rig when they first came out. I thought all my fishing problems were over. And it got tougher and tougher and tougher, and I would say now I cash probably about 90% of my fish on the bottom with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:09

Really? Mm-hmm. So like heavyweight dragging it, or you mean just like still popping it and letting it go down?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:15

No, I'm not even popping it anymore. I mean I'm just letting it sink and let them follow it down, and I'm just shaking my slack almost like a Nika rig or and then drag it like a jig. So just a heads up for the guys. Um, you know, I'm I'm um, you know, telling you throw the big one. The uh Yamamoto Uni Max is coming out. Um, should be shipping here pretty soon. Some of the stories already got it, but like I recommend just throwing the big one. I would say it's like throwing a an 8-inch, nine-inch swim bait versus uh the small little unis is like throwing a four-inch swim bait. The big one's just gonna have drawing power, and if you got big fish in that lake, it's amazing because I can see them on forward facing sewing. If I throw like the uni at some of these fish, they won't even look at it. But you pick that big sucker up and throw it, dude, they're like swarming all over it. Uh so basically now, unless it's a good day where the bread mesh pressure is lowering, the wind's blowing from the south, you got the storm coming in, don't eat anything on those days. But on a stable day, you go out there, you you throw it out there, they'll kind of swim down after it. You just drag it on the bottom or shake it. Sooner or later, they just pick it up and swim off with it. And that's how I catch like 90% of my fish now on it. So I'm curious to see if back east, because I think those lakes are a lot bigger, a lot of those fish haven't seen it um just yet. So their transition, like of how you catch it on these certain bases, and I'm wondering if it's gonna change. And uh, I did talk to Drew Gill about it uh at iCast while we're having a dinner. He has something where I mean I just love Drew Gill on how that guy thinks and processes information. And he's got me thinking about well, here in Arizona, remember, our water is clear, and I asked him, like, hey man, you think it's gonna be uh around, or you think uh you think these baits are just gonna be uh um you know the next Texas rigged worm or something like that that's gonna be a staple. And he said, Well, in clear water, I think, yeah, they're gonna be able to see it. Um, they're not gonna eat it as well, but in dirty water, no, he's he still thinks that they're gonna eat it because there's not a signature that comes from these baits, like sound, uh vibration that is is very distinct where they can identify, hey, that's that's not food. Every time we feel that or see something like that, um we get jacked. So kind of like the jackhammer. I mean, I gotta catch him on the stealth blade and the uh mini jackhammer. I mean, I got more confidence in the minis gonna do the regular jackhammer now. And I think it has to do with the vibration, the type of vibration, right? So I'm wondering if the the I asked Drew and he said well in dirty water, he he he thinks they're still gonna eat it. So I know the water back east is a lot dirtier, so maybe that's the reason why they're still biting it the way they are back east. But uh yeah, I was surprised how big it blew up because I talked to Mark Daniels about it last year. Hey, Mark, don't sleep on these baits, man. And I thought we were gonna have a year where we kind of keep it under wraps, but man, the blow it blew up blown up. Blown up.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:48

Well, we'll uh we'll wrap this sucker up with this because you let a lot of juice out the bag, uh talking scope stuff. But I I can tell you the catching them on bottom is definitely fastly catching my catching them above the fish by rigging, especially like the 17 on a Carolina rig. That has been that has been pretty pretty good up here. And granted we're talking northern fish, so there's that, but uh it's it's definitely been one that has like those fish that don't want to come up or come up interested and they kind of seen it a bunch above them, that's been a way to to get them to eat.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:25

You're throwing out a Carolina rig, you're rich.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:31

A lot of lure sabers. A lot of lure savers at the ready.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:34

That's that's a really good point. Like, what? Like, think about the the loss. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:41

Oh, I man, I got a bone to pick too. Um with what's happening at tungsten weights. I've been trying to like just load up.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:50

Well I'll say I'm throwing lead weights if that helps. Dude, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:54

We we're gonna do an overrated show, and I'm gonna literally just talk about how I'm throwing lead all the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:00

But, anyways, dude, I ordered off T Moo for the first time ever and picked up all their tungstens and probably spent $300 something dollars when I got them. Dude, they were lead.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:13

Oh, that's messed up.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:16

So pissed off. So they just lost my business for everything, and I got hustled. But for the viewers out there, if you're trying to buy tungsten, do not get them on team. Do not hey Ken Ma's cousin ripped me off, man. Just give me Ken.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:42

Oh, that's quote of the show. That's gonna be the title. Ken Ma's Cousin Ripped Me Off.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:48

Man, he ripped me off, dude. Oh, that's hilarious. Anyway, I'll just cut out anything that'll get me fired.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:00

Dude, uh, this has been a pleasure, man. It's been so good to get time with you. And uh obviously I in keeping up with Super 60 and watching how Deacon does, I'm always looking for your name. And uh man, just keep up with the great work. We'll have to get you on here more as a mainstay and just appreciate the time. Yeah, man, appreciate it. It's been incredible.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:18

Yeah, like I said, I said Adam's like, man, it's about time you asked, because I was kind of thinking, like, man, when you're doing good, everybody wants to taught you, but man, when you're having an okay or so soul, not so good, see, dude, nobody wants to be your friend. So it's so true.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:34

You find out you find out quick your buddies in the like your true buddies in the tournament world when like you have that bad, you know, everyone texts you when you're having a good tournament, but those buddies, when you like they look and you're like, oh man, like sorry to hear about it, brother. Like, it's just fishing. You got on the next one. Like, you those people that reach out when you're having a bad tournament, I appreciate those people.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:55

Well, it's it also sucks knowing a lot of people too or being known because everybody's asking, How'd you do? I suck. Oh, how'd you do? I suck. And by the time you repeat it for 60 times you go back to your place, you're like, Yeah, maybe I do suck. You start copying, start believing yourself. Yeah. Well, hey, man, my pleasure, guys. Uh, hopefully I'll get to join you guys uh in the near future. And uh yeah, man. Anyway, we'll see you guys around, man. I'll see you, Adam. Thank you so much, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:27

Yeah, brother. We'll see you soon. All right, later.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:29

Thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:30

No problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:30

All right, guys, and that's gonna do it for today's episode. Appreciate you guys taking time out of your day to listen to this one. It was already a very long episode, so I'll keep the outro short. But uh awesome. Some of the things that Ty was mentioning from the aspect ratio of talking about scope to debates that have served him well all around the country and how he's put those things together to try to be efficient on the water, whether he's fun fishing or tournament fishing, some great perspective. So, that if you guys have any questions, any topics, any guests that you'd like to see on the show, comment down below. Comment on Spotify, let us know in social media. Uh, appreciate y'all for taking time out of your day. And we'll see y'all on the next one.