Concealed among cutting edge trolling motors and gigantic graphs, it may be easy to miss a HydroWave on the bass boats you see. However, for many pros, it is something they just can't fish without. You can get started pretty quickly with one, too, thanks to these HydroWave tips and favorite patterns suggested by Mark Daniels, Jr.
Getting Started with a HydroWave
For complete details about installing a HydroWave, be sure to see the instructions that come with your unit or have your HydroWave installed by your local marina, but here are the basics for anyone who is just starting out.
Placing Your HydroWave Control Unit: The HydroWave has a control unit that you will want to mount where you can access it, typically near where the speaker will be deployed into the water and near where you will be stationed on your boat when you're fishing. Many bass anglers place their HydroWave right up on the bow, near the bow graphs and the trolling motor. For the HydroWave Mini, no mounting is required.
Placing Your HydroWave Speaker: The speaker for the HydroWave will be deployed into the water when you want to use it. For most bass anglers, this means the speaker is mounted to the lower unit on their trolling motor. For others, it may be mounted on a transducer bracket or deployed using a lever arm (or manually deployed in some cases, like when using a HydroWave mini on a bank, dock, or kayak).
Powering Your HydroWave: Since the HydroWave Mini is built to be easily transported and stowed, it runs on one 9 volt battery. For the HydroWave H2, various species-specific HydroWave Units, and the HydroWave KVD Edition, you will need to tap into your 12 volt battery source.
Once you have your control unit mounted, your speaker in place, and your HydroWave powered, the real fun can begin!
Learning How to Use Your HydroWave
As shown in the video above, here is Mark Daniels, Jr.'s quick start guide to using his HydroWave:
- Power On your HydroWave by holding the power button down for a couple seconds
- Deploy your speaker (normally mounted on your Trolling Motor's lower unit)
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Tap the Menu button to select sounds and patterns that elicit a fish's predatory feeding behavior
- Tap the Menu button several times until you reach the pattern that matches your target fish's prey, complemented by your bait choice
- Adjust the Volume using the Up and Down arrows — it is recommended to start low and increase the volume as needed
- Tap the Play button
- Tap the Delay button as needed if you want to scale back from an aggressive 'Continuous Play' pattern to a pattern that has some ebbs and flows
When you have the basics in place, knowing how to play sounds from your HydroWave and how to adjust them, we encourage you to try different patterns for different scenarios and calibrate the settings as needed. Beyond that, we recommend soaking up tips from the Pros who tournament test these units and rely on them to perform.
Tips and Favorite Patterns from Mark Daniels, Jr.
Mark Daniels, Jr. loves the BAIT BLITZ setting on his HydroWave and he uses it year-round. This is usually with the volume on a lower setting and with a Delay worked in. Other patterns and adjustments may deserve your attention, too, but here is how this setting and his HydroWave helped him while tournament fishing:
I was down on Rayburn one year and I had just got the HydroWave and I wasn't totally a believer just yet. But then I had this situation happen.
I'm going down this bay. I'm throwing topwater; I'm fan-casting over a bunch of flooded Hydrilla, and all of a sudden there's this bass. It's swimming at the same pace that my boat's going, about 20 feet off the boat. I'm like, "Man, look at that bass." I didn't trip off of it much, and I go, "I bet he's really attracted to that HydroWave sound."
I had a topwater bait in my hand and I'm telling you, it wasn't even a cast, it was a short pitch — I pitch my bait right over on top of his head, then he stops immediately. He looks up, I twitch it one time, and he engulfs it.
In my mind, he was following the sounds of the HydroWave. I made that flip over there, I twist it one time and he's like "Oh there's that bait I've been hearing!" Now I caught an extra fish.
For me, one extra bite, being able to break up some sound, be a little more stealthy, anything like that is well worth it to me to run a product like a HydroWave.
I have a tremendous amount of confidence in this for not only largemouth bas, but smallmouth, smallmouth bass in particular, they're just very curious creatures. They like to come to the sound. They come up to the boat. You'll see them sometimes following the boat. They get underneath the boat and we all know you can then drop something like a drop shot or ned rig down to them and "BOOM!" catch those fish.
So anything that can help me catch one extra bass, I'm all about it.
Get More from Your HydroWave!
To learn more about the HydroWave and various HydroWave models, visit the HydroWave page here on thmarine.com.
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