Aluminum Vs Fiberglass ? Hot Aluminum boats( Voltage )

[IronNoggin]

... Fishing black boxes? They're complete voodoo.

LOL! Head in the sand much?
Not "into" Science??

There is very much a reason we commercial trollers tend to use them - a lot that is.
And from personal experience, I can tell you there is a HUGE difference in catch rates between having it switched on and set properly, compared to switched off on a "warm" or "cold" boat!
The Science is very real, as are the catch rates!

Cheers,
Nog - The VooDoo Worshiper!

 

[Scorpiofisher]

I just went through the exact same thing two weeks ago Felix. Fished Barkley and watched at least 100 fish landed around me in 2 days and I could barely get a sniff. We did catch a couple fish deeper (80-100 feet) that went crazy once they got close to the boat, but we simply couldn't hook anything shallower than 50 feet. Thought for sure something was up with my boat (newer northwest) even though I use braid. Spoke with a wiring guy in Courtenay about what to look for and did a little research on the net. Seems the jury is out on the need to bond the negative terminal of the battery to the hull. Generally bonding occurs when the outboard is bolted to the hull unless you have some sort of non conductive plate between your outboard and your hull. From what I read it doesn't seem that it could hurt adding a bonding wire, especially if the connection to your outboard is suspect. I cleaned up a bunch of wiring connections and inspected all the zincs on the boat and motors. Cleaned the zincs that looked like they had life left with a stainless wire brush and replaced the ones that didn't look good. I was back out in the sound again this last weekend for the derby and checked the voltage around my boat with a voltmeter a couple times a day (negative to hull, positive in the water). The voltage around my boat seemed to bounce between 0.58 volts to 0.80 volts, mostly around 0.65, all with the same electronics on. Sounds like 0.62 is the sweet spot for fish. Not sure if something actually changed but it was a way fishier weekend for me with lots of fish caught at all depths. Wish I had a reading before I did the work on the boat. For peace of mind, I'm adding a voltmeter to my fishing kit, just to rule it out if nothing else and so that I have less excuses if I'm not catching.

 

[Fishalot]

Anybody know how big the voltage field is in water, the charge is on the downrigger wires using a black box so curious how far it travels.

 

[Aces]

This is right up there with bananas on the boat

 

[Fox]

I’m with Fishtofino on this one.

I will agree that having proper wiring for all electronics that ground to a bus bar via the battery is key. Also having your hull bonded to the battery plays a roll. This is how I wire my boat and haven’t had a problem catching fish. I also run braid, but when I switched from cable I didn’t notice a better “catch rate”. My boat must emit just the right voltage for all salmon or has some voodoo curse on it.

 

[Corey_lax]

Voodoo or not, my boat has hooked a lot more fish after rewiring the entire boat and switching the downriggers to braid. Sadly I made both changes at the same time so I can't comment on which changed worked best. 40 years of wiring "fixes" ends up with hundreds of feet of old copper wires. But who knows, maybe it was just braided downriggers that has increased my hookups.

 

[Mo]

Always wondered about my boat being hot, one side out fishes the other side 10-1 ,
Was out Sunday got 5 fish but it seemed every time we lowered the or raised the the rigger we got a fish .
I’ll check the volts nex time out,

 

[aheny]

Fellas

was gonna wait till the season ended , but... way to curious ,
as some of ya know . Ive recently purchased a 19 Welded Cope , love it , but.....
after putting some serious hours on it , it just doesnt seem right to me , somthing is off ,
after speaking to some VERY experienced Sporty/Commy guys , ive been told to make sure my boat is not fishing " Hot" excessive Voltage present , especially within 20 feet of the boat , its been a tough year at times for me out west , could be im having a tough year , it happens lol... but , i really want to rule this out,
ive fished for sox here in Van , outta 2 friends aluminum boats , one a new 24 Weldcraft , fully loaded with serious electronics , heavily equiped with zincs , and another Nice newer 22 Hewescraft ,
same gear , same place , same riggers , braid lines yada yada yada , all my tackle ,dummies , flashers squirts etc.
yet , completely different feels , seems like the sox were scared to get to close to the Weldcraft , and when we did hook up , we always horse them to the boat before they know what hit them , they went ballistic at the boat ?
to hot perhaps ?? the 24 weldcraft has a huge Verado 350 on the back , as well as a 9.9 kicker , long story short , the power steering pump would kill the battery in short order , then wed have to start the main to recharge for 20 min ? bites were non existent during that time it seemed ? perhaps just coincidence ... we went 2 for 10 that am , yeah yeah , we suck.... again , just seems the fish went bezerko at the boat , ive been doin sox my whole life , i know the drill....

so , thoughts on guys with experience , im an electrician , is there somthing i can do to rule this out ,
take it to someone ? volt test between the positive post and the boat itself ?? i troll with a new merc 115 seapro , possible voltage leak on troll ?? my zincs look solid , welded right to the hull , all the battery terminations all look isolated from the hull ? will have a much closer look this off season...
love my glass boat , dont have to worry about this stuff , fishy as can be ...
want to make sure mine , and my buddies boats are fishing to full potential , no HOT issues , thx to Matt for explaining what the commies look out for on there rigs...

thx in advance
felix

If the other guys haven't figured it out for you, I can give you a hand with a cathodic protection survey of your boat. Get the actual voltages compared to a reference electrode.
I'm in the lower mainland.
Pm if you'd like to chat

As for the other guys conversation about Scotty black boxes, there's a very narrow field of electrical engineering that I would consider myself an expert at.
That is creating electromagnetic fields around metal, measuring and assessing the gradient, making minute adjustments and then monitoring it in the future.
This is a common practice when preventing corrosion ofof met objects such as tanks, piers, ships and pipelines.
The claims made by the Scotty Black Box violate very basic laws of physics which are understood by every novice electrical engineer. It's similar to when a car dealership sells a corrosion module which claims to prevent corrosion of your vehicle.
I'm not saying that the Scotty Black Box doesn't work, it just doesn't work for the reasons that it claims it does.
there is no reference for it, all of your voltage measurements are made within your boat against itself.
There are several possibilities for the claimed benefits of the black box: the most likely one is that we as fisherman deal with small sample sizes, we make a small adjustment such as switching from a green hoochie to a white one, and then as soon as a fish bites we make a claim or perhaps we convince ourselves or something and then we move forward with that.
It's fun and I enjoy doing it as well but it's most definitely not science.
Now if you wanted to do what the Black box claims to do, you would need a thousand times more current and you would rather consume the Hull of your boat as an anode or you would need to use hundreds of pounds of metal as sacrificial anodes. The same reason why the automotive kit doesn't work, there's nothing being consumed and there is no complete circuit.
There's a black box on my boat, I've used it correctly, taken notes, and followed legitimate scientific methods for collecting data, and I've noticed no long-term trends.
A commercial fishing boat would be a great place to do the same, but you need to be disciplined and avoid jumping to conclusions

 

[the fog ducker]

just back fellas
fishin was lights out all week , got some confidence back on my tinny ,
out of paranoia , i ran my gear a little further back at the start , had multiple doubles the firtst few days , tightened things up eventually ,
nothing changed , fish behaved right to the side of the boat , i released %90 without handling the fish , they weren't freakin out...
im gonna follow up on all this great info , i will take ya up on that Aheny , will gladly pay you for your services , future preventive stuff im hoping for,
i think its more about my buddys Weldcraft im worried about , i think theres a problem there , something that hit me , that bloody steering system drawing 20 amps continuously , that may be the culporate ?? thx to Nogg for callin me, had a great chat , always been very helpful with me , i appreciate it Matt
enjoy your hunting trip...

thx again everyone

fd

 

[the fog ducker]

thx Rob

 

[The Jackel]

I have a North West Aluminium, love this boat. It to runs hot, i am a moocher and fish 4 rods, i also use a black box, set at 540 for springs, my boat catches its fair share of fish (of course nothing like Serengetti as he is the best just ask him). If i do not have my black box on my bow rods will catch SFA, turn it on tune it in and bam game on. Just make sure you have lots of zinc, change yearly and look for major wear on them, on a side not i throw my used zincs in the hull where my bildge pump is so if there is a leak then it should eat the used zincs instead of the boat.

 

[Rain City]

Three weeks ago I could have sworn I had some kind of issue like this. Then I caught 28 fish in 10 hours of fishing over three days. All I had to do was switch to all blue flashers lol. Now I'm a balueber.

 

[the fog ducker]

to the comments about guys thinking this is all a pile of bananas ,
thats ur prerogative , all gd , but speaking to some highly educated guys on this , as well as some very well respected seasoned trollers ,
i wouldnt right this all off , Hot metal boats can be an issue....imho
i just want a neutral boat , and be as efficient as i can be when im on the water...


fd

 

[aheny]

To be precise in your findings and what they all mean, extra education and knowledge from reliable sources will count most; Here are three of numerous other sources to find. I am a wire guy, who will never go to braid.

Book - Fishing With Electricity(late 1980's early 1990's)
May no longer be in print or the name of cover may have changed. There is a different book by the same name(wrong book focused on inland fisheries management)

Book - Pro Troll Manual
https://www.protroll.com/bb-all-chapters

PDF Doc - (A UBC THESIS)The effect of weak electrical fields on troll success for spring (Oncorhynchus tschawytscha) and sockeye…
https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0094748

That's a really good thesis, he used solid science, took Great notes, and then used proper statistical analysis of his data.

All of his interpretations note that there is no significant difference in catch results between the control and the applied voltage, which is what an electrical engineering analysis would have predicted.

Well yes the measured voltage of the top of the steel fishing line would change as you apply voltage, that change would decrease as you travel down the line, if the wire was 50 ft long, you could estimate that you would need at least 15 volts at the surface in order to detect any changes at the bottom of the wire.
When you apply a DC voltage to one end of a structure, what you create is called a gradient, where at one end you have the applied voltage and then as you travel a distance down the line the effect changes, and the current requirement to increase the voltage increases logarithmically.

now if you were using an insulated fishing wire which was exposed only at the end where the fishing tackle is located, then this procedure would effectively change the voltage in the fishing area, the results would be very interesting.

even if your intention is not to prevent corrosion, changing the DC voltage potential of an object follows the same principles as cathodic protection.
There are lots of great books you can read on the subject, many of which circumvent the more technical engineering principles and stick to methods and results, so anybody can get meaningful results without having to read electrical theory for years.
The key takeaway is that when you apply a voltage you create a gradient, you don't change the voltage of the entire object to a single value.

If his results had been meaningful, and applying 0.5 volts at the top of the wire was helping, then the length of wire which was submerged in the ocean water would also be significant. If you use a black box and you find that 0.5 volts works for you when your downrigger is at 50 feet, then if you were to have your downrigger down 80 feet you would need to apply a greater value, and conversely if your downrigger was only down 30 feet then you would apply a lesser value to get the same result.
for those of you who like your black boxes and see consistent results when you're using them, maybe keep that in mind when you're applying values, most likely if it's twice as far then you need to apply 4 times as much current, and if it's half as far you need to apply a quarter as much current.
Estimating how much current you're applying though would be difficult, as the Black Box only reports displays the desired voltage (which is adjusted by using a rheostat as a voltage divider).
Food for thought..

 

[ericl]

Anybody know how big the voltage field is in water, the charge is on the downrigger wires using a black box so curious how far it travels.

Read the 3rd link posted by StormTrooper above; it appears that it doesn't travel more than the distance between two spreads of gear port & starboard on a commercial troller, but far enough to affect a lure behind a downrigger wire however far that distance may be.

A charge emanating from something other than a fishing back box may be a whole different story as the charge on a back box is up to a couple volts where something from another source would most likely be 12 volts or more.