Outfitting Cibola For Water Use

[pamlicopanther]

Does anyone have any ideas on setting up the Cibola to get farther out in the water? The best thing I can think of is removing the body and body mount it above the water. I have a Tiger Shark, but I do so much better in the shallow water with the Cibola so I was thinking it would be great to get it out deeper. If the Tiger shark only had an external sensitivity adjustment.......

Anyway, just looking for some ideas on how to possibly get the Cibola in deeper water.

 

[Sven]

If your wearing Chest waders tuck the control box inside them. You'll need to find a coil wire extension cable and waterproof the connector

 

[digitaltim]

I've been thinking about this too.

So far I've found three manufacturer of decent waterproof boxes. Gsi lexan, otterbox, and pelican. A hole would have to be drilled for headphones and coil cord.
If you go this route pay no attention to the outside dimensions of the boxes and make sure the inside dimensions fit. Problem is unless you get a 6"+ long box you'll have to get creative. I want to keep the box small enough to sink easily or have to get the extension cord.

I like sven's idea about the waders.

I'm tryin to do it cheap though

 

[pamlicopanther]

I was looking into the box option as well. I have seen where Minelab sovereign users have made boxes for those. Looks really nice. I guess the tricky part would be waterproofing where the cables enter the box. Does Tesoro offer longer cables?

I like the wader idea too, but that would be better in cooler weather. Waders would have me too hot right now.

Thanks for the responses.

 

[Neil]

I wade with my Vaquero. Get yourself one of the longer cabled widescans. Presently I use the 10" eliptical , the stock lobo coil, but I have a long cabled 10X12 coming in the mail also. I hang the box in a small pouch around my neck and wade in with it to just over waist height. Im comfortable with that. With my rod fully extended I can get it out there pretty far.

I was told at one time if you contact who you get your Tesoros from, they can get Tesoro to make up a longer cable on pretty much any coil they make. Not sure if this is still true but worth asking if you have a hard time locating one. The stock lobo coils come with the long cable so they are a good choice.

 

[D&P-OR]

Vince (Tesoro) told me not too long ago that they could/would shorten up a coil cable for me if I wanted them to.----So I'm betting they would equip a coil you have with a longer cable as well.---There may be a small charge for it but hey---it would be less expensive than another coil.------Del

 

[skippers]

Does anyone have any ideas on setting up the Cibola to get farther out in the water? The best thing I can think of is removing the body and body mount it above the water. I have a Tiger Shark, but I do so much better in the shallow water with the Cibola so I was thinking it would be great to get it out deeper. If the Tiger shark only had an external sensitivity adjustment.......

Anyway, just looking for some ideas on how to possibly get the Cibola in deeper water.

I have a Cibola and am thinking of getting a Tiger Shark. What does your Cibola do better than the Tiger Shark in the shallow water? Skip

 

[Sven]

I have a Cibola and am thinking of getting a Tiger Shark. What does your Cibola do better than the Tiger Shark in the shallow water? Skip

Having owned both. In discriminate mode--
I think the performance is similar, no real advantage unless you get into some hot soils. Then the TS has the ability to manually ground balance.

By adding a toggle switch in place of the Cibola pinpoint button, you can run in VLF all metal mode like the TS. Add manual GB to the C..........the C will give the TS a run for the gold.

 

[grumpyolman]

So...instead of risking a dunking with the Cibola and going through the hassle of locating waterproof through the hull connectors and hoping you do it right, if SVEN is right, the Tiger Shark should be a better machine for the water, because of the ground balance, and it's waterproof to 250'. Might have forgotten how deep it's rated but I know you'd never go that deep even if you were a diver. I have two TS and thought initially that I wouldn't care for the sensitivity and volume pots inside the case. Somebody on the forum somewhere said it was not an issue. Once you got them adjusted where you wanted them there's no reason to change them. I have found that to be true so far. Also remember somebody stating the factory carefully adjusts the sensitivity to match the particular coil on the machine and those who 'play' with the sensitivity too much, have problems after awhile keeping it stable. Don't know if that's totally accurate or not. I just haven't had the need to play with mine...jim

 

[Sven]

I have two TS and thought initially that I wouldn't care for the sensitivity and volume pots inside the case. Somebody on the forum somewhere said it was not an issue. Once you got them adjusted where you wanted them there's no reason to change them. I have found that to be true so far. Also remember somebody stating the factory carefully adjusts the sensitivity to match the particular coil on the machine and those who 'play' with the sensitivity too much, have problems after awhile keeping it stable. Don't know if that's totally accurate or not. I just haven't had the need to play with mine...jim

I set my sensitivity once per the manual instructions at the beach. Never at to adjust it again, it seemed to be fine for all the beaches I have hunted.

 

[pamlicopanther]

Not sure if I have a problem with my Shark or if it is just me, but I find mine frustrating. When I first turned it on (I bought it used from a former dealer who kept it but never used it) it chattered like crazy. I had to adjust the sensitivity just to use it - Even on dry ground. I cannot get it to ground balance at all in the water. It is always very negative no matter how much I adjust it. What I was doing was ground balancing it in the wet sand/dry sand transition zone. That was the wettest I could get an even ground balance. Then I would go in the water with it. It seemed to be doing alright for awhile and then it started chattering again. I adjusted the sensitivty down and now the chatter is gone, but it just doesn't find much and seems to lack very good depth. This may be due to poor ground balance, I don't know.

Now, when I go shallow with my Cibola I find all kinds of stuff that the Tiger missed. It seems to go deeper and I can adjust the sensitivity for the situation which helps tremendously. I hunt on a brackish river and the bottom can change quickly. Having an adjustable sensitivity is a great asset to this type of hunting.

Anyway, after seeing how well the Cibola performed in the water this weekend it got me thinking about how nice I think a water proof Cibola would do in the water.

 

[Sven]

Not sure if I have a problem with my Shark or if it is just me, but I find mine frustrating. When I first turned it on (I bought it used from a former dealer who kept it but never used it) it chattered like crazy. I had to adjust the sensitivity just to use it - Even on dry ground. I cannot get it to ground balance at all in the water. It is always very negative no matter how much I adjust it. What I was doing was ground balancing it in the wet sand/dry sand transition zone. That was the wettest I could get an even ground balance. Then I would go in the water with it. It seemed to be doing alright for awhile and then it started chattering again. I adjusted the sensitivty down and now the chatter is gone, but it just doesn't find much and seems to lack very good depth. This may be due to poor ground balance, I don't know.

Now, when I go shallow with my Cibola I find all kinds of stuff that the Tiger missed. It seems to go deeper and I can adjust the sensitivity for the situation which helps tremendously. I hunt on a brackish river and the bottom can change quickly. Having an adjustable sensitivity is a great asset to this type of hunting.

Anyway, after seeing how well the Cibola performed in the water this weekend it got me thinking about how nice I think a water proof Cibola would do in the water.

If your hunting any type of salt water, the TS doesn't really like it and would result with the problems you are encountering. You may want to try some of the other modes in those conditions. The TS can be a noisy detector. It's really a freshwater machine, that's where it shines. I recall reading someplace that the TS was basically a repackaged early model Tesoro in a waterproof housing, so the technology in it is pretty old.

 

[pamlicopanther]

Thanks Sven. My river is considered freshwater, but it can get quite salty especially when we go for a long period with no rain. That is the current situation right now. The salinity is quite high right now. I even saw some porpoises swim by the other day. The Cibola does so good I didn't think the salinity was hurting too much. I certainly can't use a PI as we still have alot of trash like nails and so forth.