How do you use your fish finders???

[sodaksker]

 I get a little frustrated with my fish finders.  I bought a boat with an eagle 240 on the bow and on the console.  Maybe I just need to get more familiar with them and more experienced. ???

Do you guys mainly use your fish finders for looking at depth and contour of the bottom? When you find the right structure and drop off, do you then assume there is fish there and start throwing Or do you use them to locate fish and then target those fish?

I lose a little faith after I find some fish, throw every thing in the box at them and not get a nibble. :-/  What are your methods, when do you give up on a spot?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Rob

[SENKOSAM]

Fish finders are not used by shallow water anglers as fish finders. By shallow, I'm talking under 8' or deeper in clear water. The only true shallow-water fish finder is the sidefinder sonar. It covers the top few feet near the surface and indicates size of fish and the distance to it or them.

Side finder sonar is especially valuable for finding schools of prey fish and gamefish in open water and the presence of fish anywhere near the shore line and under surface cover. I've caught many solitary fish that were indicated to the sides of my bow. You can see the need for a sidefinder for ice fishing in winter and will save a great deal of time by indicating in which direction to move to and start drilling holes.

Straight-down transducers are used to indicate bottom hardness, dropoffs and cover and will find fish from top-to-bottom, as well as indicate sizes.

Used in shallow water, they are useful, but only in indicating the first three, because fish that it picks up under the boat will usually be panfish or minnows and not the fish you will target. Sonar in this sense, is a navigational and topographic tool and is used to understand the layout of the bottom long before you ever make your first cast to an area.

Used in deep water, fish that are found may be caught with vertical techniques and lures, but usually the information is a guide to how near the bottom fish are feeding or suspending and their relationship to baitfish schools and structure. This info is valuable in chosing lures that will target fish at those depths and the techniques that should be used for active versus inactive fish.

Mike Delvisco has one of the finest dvd's on sonar use and tweaking ever made. I've learned a lot from seeing him at a Bass U. seminar and it changed how I set up my sonar for maximum efficiency.

http://www.bassbytes.tv/

This site (Ult. Bass Resource) also has excellent tutorials regarding sonar use and is the first place to learn the basics or advance one's knowledge.

Sonar is my underwater eyes and anyone that blindly casts to shorelines or to open water, is hoping luck will prevail versus using ones intelligence to put probability in your favor.

[BillyBob]

Very seldom have I ever caught the fish my bow mount showed me. Only once or twice have I caught off a stump or  brushpile where I spyed some boomers. But you mentioned all but the most important and that is activity depth and bait fish, that I can't wait to turn it on for. Balls of shad under the surface tells all in structure type fishing. Ain't no bait...ain't no bass! Activity zones in summer tell you how deep to fish and for that matter how to! Are they suspended? Are they on the bottom? Wheres the thermocline? Whats the Temperature? If your going to fish for the fish you detect on sonar you'de better throw that 20 degree transducer away and get you an 8 degree. Ever pass a stump to turn around and not find it again ? Structure is then important as to what the bottom is made of, points and ledges, drop offs, ect. Its come along way since my first hummer flasher!

[Ben]

As soon as you learn it not a "bass finder" you will be a lot closer to learning how to use it. Sometimes you will be able to identify bass holding close to structure but 95% of the time it's used to identify primary locations that hold fish. For other species and schools of bait fish that are not holding so close to structure, they work quite well.

You also have to realize what shows up on the screen is probably not directly under you, it can be anywhere in the cone angle.

My next suggestion is not to run it in automatic. That's basically the same unit as my X-75's and they work much better if you use the manual setup.

There is also a learning curve of determining what's junk and what's not that shows up on the screen.

[SENKOSAM]

But you mentioned all but the most important and that is activity depth and bait fish, that I can't wait to turn it on for. Balls of shad under the surface tells all in structure type fishing. Ain't no bait...ain't no bass!

I thought that what I indicated:

Used in deep water, fish that are found may be caught with vertical techniques and lures, but usually the information is a guide to how near the bottom fish are feeding or suspending and their relationship to baitfish schools and structure. This info is valuable in chosing lures that will target fish at those depths and the techniques that should be used for active versus inactive fish.

I've covered the bases between shallow and deep water uses, fish location and finding the relationship of bass to structure and prey fish.

[Guest the_muddy_man]

Hey this was the first summer I actually got to see the benifits of my unit. I got a lot of useful info in the articles section of this forum. Mostly what features to fine tune and not use the factory settings. And like many have said I only use it to find places that will hold fish and when Im fishing water deeper than 10 feet. However I mostly fish the thin water b/c I fish for fun and dont have the pressures the pros do

[sodaksker]

[. I got a lot of useful info in the articles section of this forum. Mostly what features to fine tune and not use the factory settings.

Where are these articles you are refferring to?

[Matt Fly]

The how to part. Go to an area you can see bottom. Like a swim beach. see what the auto mode displays hard sandy bottoms as. Play with gain to see what kind of picuture you get in man. mode. Find soft mud, like a wash that comes into a lake,  see the difference in bottom on the graph,  rocks, sandy bottoms and mud appear different on screen.  Different cone(transducers) angles at different depths show more. I parallel the bridge and bridge pilings at idle speeds to see how long it takes the transducer mounted on the stern (back of the boat) to show up on screen. May be 3ft or greater past the piling depending on speed. Find vegitation to graph, and timber, brush piles. Find areas you know, What does the dam look like. If its all boulders, what does this show up as. Remember to play with the zoom functions as well, If I'm looking for suspended fish out in deep water, Bottom is a feature I don't care about. 40ft deep, fish suspended at 20ft. I set zoom mode to 15ft-25ft. Knowing what is down there taught me how to read a graph. Just graphing water and guessing didn't help me. Before long, I knew i had grass in 20ft of water growing up about 8ft off bottom. What does the launch ramp look like? You know on the edge of most ramps is a cut or drop off. Knowing what is supposed to be there and what your graph shows is the key to learning by yourself without an expert in the boat to help you. And expeirence is the best teacher.

[gatrboy53]

good thread... i learn something all the time ... i knew this but i learned that what u read on ur graph is not always what is under ur boat... i fish a reclaimed phosphate mine that the whole bottom is structured ...points ,drops ledges, none of the bottom is flat for long.... it is loaded w/ shad.... and they relate to the many different types of structure... i troll looking for bait and relation to structure when i locate bait or structure i turn around to go back over it to pinpoint position ....many many times i cant find it ...it aint where i think it should be.... i just realized the tranducer is not in exact relation to my boat position..... i also hardly ever use d.f as a f.f. but sometimes i can see fish in the bait pods they show up as a bigger arch

[Raul]

I use the "fish" finder to locate structure and schools of baitfish never to "locate" bass. The only time I use it as "fish finder" is to locate panfish and carp.

[sodaksker]

Thanks for all of your replies ;D

[Rattlinrogue]

I use mine to find structure such as dropoffs,humps,channels,and also cover on the structure.It's tempting to assume you're going to clean up when the fish alarm starts going off,but I've never had much success with that.

[AM]

I just installed the exact same sonar unit in question in my 16 foot jonboat and it will all of the sudden stop taking readings. it will work good while trolling but then just stops sometimes i will try adjusting the transducer and it might pick back up. but still with the same results. any suggestions?

thanks,

Andy