Lucas's Hobie Pro Angler, a Lowrance testing platform

... written for Panbo by Ben Ellison and posted on Mar 8, 2012
Navico_Product_Manager_Lucas_Stewart_w_bass.jpg

Navico product manager Lucas Steward may look like he's having fun, but he really is putting a lot of Lowrance gear through its paces. Really. When I got chatting with him during an early morning Miami demo (more on that soon) and he mentioned that he does some testing aboard his Hobie Mirage Pro Angler, I pictured perhaps an Elite-5 DSI fishfinder/plotter mounted on its deck. But it turned out that Steward had a much grander vision for his 14-foot pedal boat...

Yup, that's an HDS10 Gen2 multi function display on the starboard rail of the Hobie, and that's not all..

Lowrance_Hobie_Pro_Angler_lab.jpg

In the shot below you can also see the iPhone and memory stick dock for a Sonic Hub audio system along with the dual speakers mounted on the foredeck. It doesn't look like the stereo separation could be very good, but Lucas reports that he can really feel the bass...  

Lowrance_Hobie_Pro_Angler_lab_cockpit.jpg

And here you can see both Broadband Sonar and Structure Scan transducers mounted on the Hobie's carrying handle with RAM handlebar mounts. If Steward weren't changing transducers frequently, he says he'd use the special Lowrance Scupper Mounts designed for fishing kayaks (note that he hosts that page's video)...

Lowrance_Hobie_Pro_Angler_ducer_mounts.jpg

Yes, there's side looking sonar on what's only slightly more boat than a kayak. That means there's an Ethernet connection from the LSS black box below to the HDS and there's also that tiny NMEA 2000 backbone so the HDS can talk with the Sonic Hub black box. I don't know if this equipment accounts for that sizable largemouth bass seen at the top, but this this sure looks like a good rig for testing waterproofness among other things. Incidentally, Lucas says he can run this whole system for at least 8 hours on this AGM jet ski battery (he loves "testing"). Has anyone ever seen so much electronics on such a small boat?

Lowrance_Hobie_Pro_Angler_lab_bow_install.jpg

Comments

Your hobi setup looks great, I fish the bays and back waters in the corpus. Christi/port aransas areas, could use a setup like that

Posted by: dickie geiser at March 9, 2012 10:19 AM | Reply

Incidentally, I checked with Lucas and he can indeed take and make Bluetooth headset calls on his iPhone when it's stowed away in that waterproof dock. (That also means that hard-of-hearing fishermen could be doing the same thing with their aids: http://goo.gl/bIOwO )

Posted by: Ben E at March 9, 2012 10:33 AM | Reply

Lucas is installing equipment and snaking cables thru the transom a piece of cake?

Posted by: Dan Corcoran (b393capt) at March 13, 2012 7:12 PM | Reply

What are the RAM parts holding the transducer, just starting to rig up a PA.

Posted by: Doug at March 23, 2012 1:45 PM | Reply

Please tell me there is a mount for the transducer you have equiped your Pro Angler 14 that I can buy commercially. I own a PA 14 myself and use a scupper mount by Lowrance and everytime I beach, I have to pull it out. Any info on the one you have mounted in the pics would be great.

Thanks,
Jeff

Posted by: Jeff at April 26, 2013 9:41 AM | Reply

How did you mount the rails? The ones that the lss box is mounted to?

Posted by: kevin at January 14, 2014 12:00 PM | Reply

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