I had a chance to go fishing with Elite pros Bill Lowen, Bryan Thrift and other friends on Lake Lanier in November and we all got a sneak peek at the new Humminbird electronics.
It’s been 15 years or more since I fished that lake and man, has it improved. If you had 10 pounds of spotted bass back in my earlier tournament days you’d finish high in the standings. Today, 10 pounds sends you home without a check.
Anyway, this trip provided the perfect fishery to play with the new Humminbird electronics. The lake is loaded with brushpiles and both spotted bass and striped bass so we had a lot of targets to look at.
We got to see the new XPLORE units and Mega Live 2 forward-facing sonar.
I was extremely impressed with the XPLORE graphs. They respond immediately to screen changes and offer a bright picture. You can see them perfectly in bright sunlight — even when wearing sunglasses — without having to shade the screen.
Also, when we got up on plane over 45 mph, the new mapping could be zoomed in and out without delay, and you could see as little as 1 foot incremental changes in bottom structure.
Another cool feature is Humminbird has expanded the number of color palettes it offers in the XPLORE. One thing we’ve learned is that not all eyes are the same, and some anglers see more detail in one color than they might see in another.
I will definitely have the XPLORE and Apex units on my new boat this spring.
The Mega Live 2 really blew me away. I don’t know a lot about technology, but I know it gets better as time passes. I’ve used the original Mega Live for a few years and loved how it showed me things about bass behavior I didn’t know.
But after watching the Mega Live 2 test, it was clear that Humminbird has made it much better. For example, I viewed its performance with a variety of lures and could see a topwater or a 3/4-ounce football jig hit the water and was able to follow them back to the boat.
Equally impressive was the fact I could clearly see brushpiles 150 feet away, something I struggled to do before.
I can be running my Minn Kota trolling motor along at 3 mph, see a brushpile 150 feet away, put the trolling motor into reverse without blowing out the brush because I was on top of it. When I spot a brushpile from a distance, I can settle the boat down, pick up the proper rod/bait and make a good cast without spooking fish that are in the brush.
All in all, it was a great trip for catching spotted bass, spending time with friends and learning more about the new Humminbird products for 2025.