Back in September, upon the announcement that Humminbird will be upgrading all their sidescan units with downscan ability – all units save my two 797c2 SI units that is, I posted a blog admonishing the manufacturer for this oversight.

Today, I received a private message from a forum member that Humminbird has “amazingly” overcome the memory restrictions that prevented them from upgrading the 797c2 SI unit in the first place and that this firmware upgrade is also now available for this unit. I’ve downloaded the upgrade and loaded it to an SD card. It’s going to be another month or two before my boat sees the water again, but I’m happy to have the prospect of some additional functionality from my two 797c2 SI units.

Hopefully the upgrade goes well. Finally.

You may already be aware that the annual Southern California event held by Angler’s Marine, the Bass-A-Thon, is not being held this year. Last year was TackleTour’s first trip to that event and we were all prepped and ready to go again when we were informed in late August that it had been cancelled. Needless to say, we were disappointed.

But where one event is cancelled, the opportunity for another to rise and perhaps take its place arises, and that is exactly what is happening. That’s right, the folks at MonsterFishingTackle.com and Marine Unlimited have gotten together to create the inaugural Northern California equivelant of the Bass-A-Thon and have dubbed it, Bass Jam ‘09!

Following in the tradition of the former Southern California event, Bass Jam ‘09 already has confirmed several big bait manufacturers including Black Dog Baits, JSJ Baits, Rago Baits, Mattlures, AC Plugs, Tylure, and many more yet to be announced. Confirmed seminars will be held by the likes of Brent Ehrler, Ish Monroe, Cody Meyer, Jerry Rago, Bub Tosh, and Aaron Coleman, and this list is also not yet complete.

The event will be held at the future home of Outdoor Pro Shop and Monster Fishing Tackle at 412 Houser Street, Cotati, CA 94931. The dates are November 14-15, 2009. For more information on this event, visit http://www.bassjam09.com/.

In the meantime, you can be sure the TT boys are packing their bags in preparation to cover the event. See you there!