Mega Live - when are they going to ship ?

[Spotshooter]

I saw the pre-order thing, and was hoping they would be out by now - so what’s the skinny folks ?

[Dirtyeggroll]

I saw the pre-order thing, and was hoping they would be out by now - so what’s the skinny folks ?

No one knows. Not looking like anytime soon. Months at best. I think we are all hoping for some kind of demo at iCast or Bassmaster Classic, but I'm not really expecting it. Somehow the pages long threads about this have not had a whisper in a while. People must have given up.

[scott c]

I am betting it will be spring of 2022

[CowboyRulz]

Here's what's known about the mysterious disappearance of Mega Live. Don't ask too many questions...

Part1:
It was a cold February morning. You know the kind. Can’t get enough coffee in yourself so you start hitting the hard stuff, early. As we rolled up to the launch ramp the sky was still dark. A single, pulsating light streamed down from a 70s era lamppost. The constant blinking seemed to have a rhythm, like code…morse code…”get the **** back to bed”, it told me. There waiting for me was Angela, the barmaid who shouted “last call” only 4 short hours ago. Then she kept me up the next 3 hours until I passed out of exhaustion, inebriation or possibly that red pill someone suggested I take just before we hit the bars. Brandon let out a nasty 2 second belch that quickly filled the cab with his night’s activities…Jack, Funyuns and that disgusting free chili at the casino. “Wake up, boss!” he said entirely too loud. “Time to freeze our sacks off.” Goddamnit, I hated being a Humminbird demo technician.
As we circled the parking area, I noticed the red/green running lights of a far-off approaching boat. “Damn, someone’s early!”, I muttered. “Just some of those ****in fatfish poachers.”, Brandon said. It was a well-known secret that the buoys separating the trout hatchery in Foxden Cove were ignored past midnight by many locals and even some guides who wanted to get their clients a Fatfish, as they called the giant catfish that lurked beneath the hatchery nets for food scraps. “Que sara, sara.”, I mumbled. Brandon called me a French faggit. I mentioned the loose nature of his mother. It was turning into a pretty typical start to a day’s work.
As we readied the boat for launch, the engine rev on the other boat suggested he was coming in pretty hot. This was only notable because the rigs these Fatfish guys used were pretty ragtag. I always wondered if they ever capsized with some of the fish they would land. I could just see them out there in the middle of the lake clinging to the fat belly of a big ol’ dead catfish. Irony, I guess…never could really define that word. Before I could get that thought out of my head a red flashing light and siren blast came from the approaching boat. “What the F…”, said Brandon. He wasn’t able to finish his poem before a voice came over a loud speaker. “Back away from the boat.” Came a voice like a drill sergeant in a generic Vietnam-era movie. We were stunned and the two spot lamps they were pointing directly into both of our eyes didn’t help.

...continued

[CowboyRulz]

Part2:

Now, I knew this was gonna end bad. Brandon is not your average 20-something shit-4-brains. His daddy is a prepper and Brandon bought into the whole lifestyle before he could walk. He’s gone down every bottomless rabbit hole and around every deep web dark corner. He actually got the job with me to try and relax him…spend some time out on the water and get away from his demons. At first, he would always start a conversation about the latest thing he had “uncovered”. “Did you know why the US took over Guam?” or “Have you ever heard the real reason we’re going to Mars?”. I’m an open-minded guy and I even liked his story telling style. The problem was it would get him so worked up to tell them that it became an issue with getting the work done. If I don’t get done at 5p, I miss happy hour at 6p. Sometime Angela has already latched onto some other guy and I’m left with whatever scraps will follow me home. That’s usually a pretty high fat diet.
I’d seen the gun range at his family’s compound and knew what he could do. One day he ran through some exercise drills as I finished the remnants of a Pabst sixer. It was lunchtime and we usually took a long lunch. I marveled at how quick he was and how accurate. Poor kid was a total outcast in high school. With these moves he should have been the star quarterback with a cheerleader on both arms. To be fair, he’d probably grown a full 6 inches after he turned 17. He really looked the part now of a high school, hell, college athlete. At one point of the drill, he discarded his gun, pulled a knife and charged a life-sized dummy. He hit that thing with such force, I swear I heard it moan. The knife blade exited the other side and the stuffing collapsed to a flat spot where an enemy’s internal organs would be. “It will kill.”, I heard the knife expert on Forged in Fire say. He will kill, was more like it.
As the mystery boat came flying towards us, I saw Brandon reach for his pistol. He called it “The Glock” after “The Rock”, one of his childhood heroes. Every time he said it, he would raise his eyebrow like the wrestler turned actor. It was a .45 caliber converted to .460 Rowland and he loved to tell anyone who would listen that it was now, essentially, a semi-auto 44 mag. “460 Rowland: Make my ****ing Day” was a bumper sticker on his POS Toyota truck. I don’t carry and always told anyone who would ask that Brandon carried enough for both of us. As soon as I saw Brandon’s instincts kick in, I made a run for the cab of the truck. I had a thumper bat under the seat. Not much but I wasn’t going down pissing myself, I was still stoned or drunk enough to be that brave at least.

...continued

[CowboyRulz]

Part 3:

As I reached the door, I heard the crack of gunfire that was not from a carry pistol. This was the obvious sound of an assault rifle. A bullet ripped right through the old camper on the back of my ’82 GMC into and through the cab of the truck. That seemed to make it all seem a bit more real and I wondered what that would do to Brandon when I instantly got my answer. I peaked over to the side view mirror on the passenger side and could make out Brandon taking up position behind the wheels of the dual axel trailer. A series of shots from the AR came out like a trio of rapid fire. “Oh shit”, that’s full auto. I remembered the time Brandon and I got into an argument about silencers. He said they were a nuisance and liability and I was trying to make the argument that it would be better to be stealthy, quiet. Brandon said something that always stuck with me. “Boss, training is the only thing that’s going to save you in a gun fight.”. But then he added, “Unless some MF has a full auto then all bets are off.”.
“What if they have a full auto and training?”, I asked myself as another trio of auto rounds split the cold morning air. To be truthful, at this point I was frozen in the cab and put my head down. What happened next, I only heard and did not see. Brandon fired off 5 rounds in about 2 seconds it seemed. The Rowland went off like a cannon compared to the AR round. I could hear the lead slapping into the fiberglass and metal of the boat. One voice yelled and then a splash. “Put it down, *******!” rang out on the loud speaker. Brandon was the last person in the world to heed that advice. He screamed out for me to run and then I heard him empty 10 more rounds before a full auto blast of bullets tore through the night and dropped a strange silence over the quickly arriving dawn.
Someone yelled out, “I love the smell of gunpowder in the morning…even better than napalm!”. A couple laughs and then the sound of someone climbing out of the water and onto the shore. “Son of a bitch knocked me clean into the ice water!”. More laughs and voice sounding more official. “Did you run, Boss?”. I had not. I clenched the little bat so hard it hurt my forearms. I dropped it and all feeling of hope suddenly left me. It was almost liberating. I knew I was a goner but knowing that (and possibly the pharmacopeia still in my system) made me somehow brave. I looked at the mirror again and Brandon was face down in a growing pool of blood. “He was only 24 you stupid ****s.”. I didn’t know his real age, but 24 sounded pretty tragic. “What the hell are you doing?!”. Heavy boot footsteps, 3 or 4 sets, approached from the direction of the water. The ever-lightening morning sky seemed to promise a good day. Why in the freaking world did this have to happen?

...continued

[CowboyRulz]

Part 4:

One of the guys from the shore yelled, “That little ***** clipped our engine real good. This boat’s not going anywhere.” The boots walking toward me stopped beside the truck. I was sitting in the front seat, bat in my lap and probably looking way too calm for the situation. “You ****ing high or something shithead?”, the lead guy said. The smartass in me was not wanting to play. I went into traffic stop mode. “No sir.”, I said. “You gonna cornhole us with your little bat, tough guy?”, they all started laughing. “No sir”, I said. “Good, ******.”, he quipped…wow, second time in one day already, I thought, randomly. Then he started a bit of a rehearsed speech almost like Miranda rights but less “kind”. “We’re gonna take your boat but we’re not gonna kill you. If you call the cops, we’re gonna kill you. If you talk about us in the bar, we’re gonna kill you. If you post something online, we’re gonna kill you. See the pattern here numbnuts?”. “Yes, sir”, I said. “Good. Now give me the keys to the boat and give us your jacket. Your dead buddy blew one of my boys right into the water.” It was clear these guys were head to toe militant and wearing every stereotypical bit of tactical gear you could imagine. “Bulletproof, not waterproof.”, I thought to myself. “Maybe he’ll catch a cold and die. Way to go Brandon!”, I weakly championed the death of my young coworker.
They took Brandon’s body and put it in the boat they arrived in. It was dragged out with them using my bass boat and a 50’ toeline I kept on board for emergencies. Never did I ever think I’d see it used for this. About a ½ mile out they appeared to stop, there was some back-and-forth movement between the boats and then the smoke started. Their boat was on fire with Brandon undoubtably serving as a burning effigy to whatever the past hour of hell had been all about. I realized I had no idea what these guys had caused all this death and destruction about. At first, I thought about that 2 month affair I’d had with the Mayor’s wife. She and I had a thing going all the way back to High School but that seemed to end without anyone knowing better. I was all settled with my bets and had sworn off the back room at the casino. I was pretty sure they were cheating in there somehow, anyway. I somehow managed to get home. Truck and trailer and no boat. That didn’t look suspicious.

...continued

[CowboyRulz]

Part 5: Conclusion

The cops showed up at my door wondering why I hadn’t reported my boat missing. They had found it pulled up on a remote part of the lake with several ATV tire tracks leading away from the area. “It’s got some bullet holes in it.” said the officer. “Other than that, it looks pretty good.”. They had brought it back to the same boat launch so I followed them with my truck to go get it. They didn’t seem too interested in giving me the first degree about what happened. Shit that was going down on the lake was pretty small potatoes compared to the meth problem flaring up all over the area. I was still pretty rattled by their presence and just went through the motions of trailering my boat as they stood by. One of them was standing right where Brandon had been lying. They had spent a good 10 minutes cleaning up the spot prior to dragging away his body. “Smells like chemical here” the officer’s partner said, “like bleach.” “Yeah, some a-holes clean there boats right here so it can run right back down into the lake.”, the lead officer said. “Serves them right that the fishing has gone to hell.”. I got into the driver’s seat to trailer the boat. I looked at my steering wheel and barely noticeable but carved into the center was a warning: “Talk=dead”. I visually shuddered. One of the officers must have noticed and mistook my reaction to the lost security of a theft. “No big deal, man. So you’re not the only person who’s ever farted in the seat.”, he said. The officers forced out a bellowing laugh as though they had said that one a few times before. I finished trailering the boat, thanked the officers and headed home. I could not wait to put this one behind me.
As I pulled into the driveway, I heard the landline ringing in my duplex. I never bought a cellphone in my life and never plan on it. “**** the 21^st century”, I would often say. I ran in and placed the earpiece to my head. On the line was my contact at Humminbird wondering how the new Mega Live unit was performing and did I have my report ready. “Uh, you’re gonna have to give me a couple days on that one.”, I said. He became audibly upset. “Goddamit, this is the third time you’ve put me off, man. At least get on your ancient computer and send me the data from the microSD card.”. This was like telling a newborn to drive a car. “What the hell? You’re going to have to walk me through this bud.”, I said. He told me to go out and get the head unit and he would walk me through it. I walked out to the boat and headed to the bow. I am kind of crazy about bass boat electronics. I hate just about every other kind of computerized shit, but if it gets me more fish, I want it. My cockpit and bow look like a stock market trader desk. Big screens everywhere. I’m kind of known for this one thing and that’s why Humminbird had sought me out to give things the testing a “normal guy” can give these toys. All my screens were as I left them. I even got lucky and there were no bullet holes in anything. However, I looked at the trolling motor shaft and something was missing. “Oh my ****!”, I gasped. “They just wanted the Mega Live!”.
I went back inside to tell the Humminbird guy I’d been ripped off. This is standard operating stuff to these guys and we get a good 3 hour training session on what to do if this happens. It all boils down to alert Humminbird and they activate a GPS signal that quickly allows the cops to find the stolen units. When I told him it was gone he went silent for a moment. Then he told me that he had not been able to reach 6 other testers and many of the others had also been stolen. “Son of a bitch”, I said. “I’m out, never call me again.”.

[Chris1978]

Vapour-ware

Humminbird’s marketing played everyone so they wouldn’t buy LS or AT on Black Friday etc

2022 spring I’m betting

Don’t hold your breath

[06 SB]

It will ship the day after Power Pole ships their trolling motor...

[Capw]

Cowboy has way too much free time.

[TroyBoy30]

right after big foot is discovered

[trashmanssd]

[CowboyRulz]

Cowboy has way too much free time.

Boat's in the shop...

It will ship the day after Power Pole ships their trolling motor...

The Power Pole trolling motor saga will be the topic for the next installment of the franchise...Phoenix Rising: Brandon Strikes Back

Mega Live makes a cameo appearance but it turns out to just be a dream (SPOILER ALERT!!!).