Watching electronics vs. fishing

[BassKat]

@Rockhopper Me too.  While everyone else is offshore, I'm frogging and punching mats with absolutely no mercy!

[GRiver]

The pro used to come by the dock pre-fishing for a tournament. I’d go out, everyone would talk , chit chat, make jokes. Now almost everyone of them are idling by, looking down at their screens.

Times have changed , I guess.  
 

[WRB]

Started looking at my electronics (flasher) over 50 years ago and it became essential to meter around the marina to determine depth of the life zone every outing.

My sonar was my eyes underwater at depths I couldn’t see and feel blind without looking at the screen now.

Ounce I know what depth to target I check the area fished to see if anybody was home and missed the bite window to determine if returning later was in the cards.

So yes I look all day every time on the water if possible.

Tom

[Bluebasser86]

Only while I'm on the way to my next spot. 

[Standard]

Fishing my normal spots.. 0% as it's a river and I don't bring electronics.  If I'm on a lake with my sidescan setup, I'll keep an eye on it while moving spots to look out for structure.  

 

Ice fishing.. I'm staring at that thing so much I think I have livescope screen burned into my retina sometimes.

[MRQturbo]

If it's a new lake, yes I'll pay closer attention to electronics to help eliminate dead water.... 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

@OkobojiEagle  It's a mix of Threadfin and Gizzard Shad

[LrgmouthShad]

10 hours ago, OkobojiEagle said:

On your home lake

My 'home' lake is Stillhouse Hollow in Central TX. I have been in TX for about 2 years. Stillhouse is not a small lake. I spend about 20% +/- 10% of my time purely graphing on a regular trip. 

10 hours ago, Tennessee Boy said:

I've been known to spend 100% of my time graphing.  I don't catch much but I find lots of places to fish in the future.

Time well spent. On a new lake it is the first thing I do. I often won't bring any rods

[gim]

Less than 10%. Probably closer to 5%, depending on the size of the lake. Bigger water requires more travel time which keeps me glued to my graphs. It’s a combination of safety reasons and looking for specific habitat.

 

My sonar and GPS is always on when I’m fishing too, but I do not stare at it while I’m fishing. I glance at it frequently, ensuring the boat is positioned where I want it to be, and to see the depth.

[casts_by_fly]

11 hours ago, Tennessee Boy said:

It depends on many factors.  I don't think you can spend too much time graphing.  I've been known to spend 100% of my time graphing.  I don't catch much but I find lots of places to fish in the future.

also a good way to do motor break in on a new boat in the early season. 

[txchaser]

More time I spend on the electronics the more fish I end up catching, to a point. Sidescan in particular - you find stuff that very few other people know is there. Those fish get beat on less. 

 

Now that I have FFS they are kinda the same - fishing and on the electronics. Although in less than 8FOW I'm mostly using it for "yep there's stuff here in this area" vs targeting specific fish. It is very efficient. 

[FishTank]

I don't have FFS yet. Not sure it's for me but I do spend a few hours from time to time looking for nice spots off shore. I will mark them and come back.  If they don't produce,  I move on to another one until I get bit and then mark that spot again. 

[Pat Brown]

I use my down imaging and 2D sonar on my little Garmin unit that attaches to my transom on my trailing motor when I'm going from place to place just to monitor depth changes and try to keep track of where I'm seeing fish and about what depth in general etc. I also sometimes use it to identify isolated pieces of cover offshore and stuff like that.  Primarily I use it to locate bait and depth changes though.  I would say I'm only actively using it when I'm moving from place to place.  I actually am one of the weird people that turns it off when I get close to an area I'm about to fish with a plan because I believe that the sonar pings can make fish scatter.

[FishTax]

I watch it when moving from place to place, and sometimes when I first launch I'll go 10 minutes looking for bait on the graph before I start fishing. My problem is I really like fishing, and I stare at a screen all day at work so sometimes I don't even bring electronics with me as others have said I know the lake area I fish pretty well and don't need it. But I do need it to find the bait which I learned from @WRB should be the first thing I do in the marina before I start casting, so I try to follow that advice he's written many times on here. 

[Choporoz]

On 2/26/2025 at 11:27 AM, AlabamaSpothunter said:

In the middle of winter, I'd say 25% of my time is devoted to finding bait with side scan and down scan.     I also actively fish with it when doing things like Damiki Rigging, or Strolling.   

 

Once they get up shallow in the spring.......0%.

 

Then once they start moving back in post spawn and all the way through the summer, I'd say about 10%.       

 

Finally in the Fall I use it about 15-20% again because I'm trying to find bait constantly.  

 

So my usage is really based on how important finding bait offshore is.   

This.    And a fair amount of time looking for cover and structure.   I have only been on this lake for 3 years and I find new cover or structure elements almost every day. Finding new offshore cover is always exciting to me.  There's no way I'd know about 35' trees standing in 50 FOW without idling around looking at sidescan.

[herder]

I have mine on 100% of the time I'm on the water.

I'm also in a kayak and am a paddler, no motor or pedals.

It’s just a 2d color with maps loaded, and where it's mounted I can just glance at it any time.

In some of the reservoirs I fish I'm just looking for bait, drop offs, depth, weed edge lines, stuff on the bottom and occasionally I actually target fish on it.

It really helps in eliminating barren water, plus you never know when you might come across something you never knew was there.

 

 

[Scott F]

On my ”home” lake, I have a dozen or so sunken islands that top off at about 4’. Most of these are several acres in size and are in open water not near any shoreline. I use the electronics to help locate these offshore reefs and help me stay just off the edges. 90% of the bass I get are within 10 feet of the edge that drops into deep water. If I lose the edge of the drop, I’m not catching.

[OkobojiEagle]

1 hour ago, Scott F said:

On my ”home” lake, I have a dozen or so sunken islands that top off at about 4’. Most of these are several acres in size and are in open water not near any shoreline. 

Color me envious...

[Bankbeater]

Maybe around 1%.  Most of the time I leave the electronics at home unless something has happened to really move things around on the bottom. 

[Koz]

I fish out of a kayak, but I would fish differently if I had a boat. If I had a boat, I would spend a considerable amount of time running the lake using side scan and marking structure. The speed of the boat makes that possible.

 

In a kayak, I don’t do much of that because I’m moving so slow I would just rather fish. 

 

I do have Livescope and I use it extensively. But there are also times when I shut it off and take the transducer out of the water. Whether I use it or not depends upon the depth I’m fishing or if I’m fishing heavy vegetation or even what kind of mood I’m in. 

 

I run two graphs and I just about always keep my SmartStrike maps running.

[Swamp Girl]

I am genuinely confused. My ONLY contact with FFS is YouTube videos where I see anglers staring non-stop at their screens, but you guys with FFS say you rarely use them. What explains this difference?

[TOXIC]

Anglers that are proficient with FFS aren’t just staring at their screen and not fishing.  They are fishing what they see on the screen.  It’s not an either/or scenario.  If they weren’t looking at their screen they’d be staring at open water or the bank while they fish.  It’s a little overblown when complaints are that they stare at their screen all day and it makes it boring to watch.  

[casts_by_fly]

26 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

I am genuinely confused. My ONLY contact with FFS is YouTube videos where I see anglers staring non-stop at their screens, but you guys with FFS say you rarely use them. What explains this difference?

 

For me, it's lake and time of year dependent.  Grass is a big factor.  In your bogs, FFS would be pretty useless because of all of the vegetation and lack of depth.  I have a lot of lakes like that here. The bass are up in the vegetation and FFS doesn't penetrate vegetation (maybe the next FFS should be x-ray waves...).  I can tell you that on my 'home lake', the grass grows from about 12-15' deep to the surface.  The thermocline sets up at 15' in the summer.  So either the bass will be in the weeds, or they would have to be travelling open water in 0-15' over 30' of water (the lake is largely a big bowl that bottoms out around 30').  I can tell you that they don't do the latter on that lake as I've looked.  This lake also has a lot of muskies, so I'm pretty confident that the bass are staying in the vegetation.  In that scenario, FFS is pretty useless outside of seeing the weedline (which you can see pretty well anyway with the 5'+ water clarity).

 

In a lot of the videos you'll see, the guys are using FFS to chase bait and find the fish that are eating that bait. While fish are eating bait year round, that's largely a winter/spring/prespawn deal in a lot of places.  Wintertime bass are following or ambushing bait and they continue that pattern until they get the push to spawn.  Look at the tournaments on Lake fork and Toledo bend in Feb the past couple years and that's the same pattern.  I imagine on the highland reservoirs that don't have grass you could do this year round.  If there is grass then its harder.

 

FFS also lends itself to some techniques better than others.  If you're offshore then it helps.  If you're going down the bank casting to targets and cover it's less useful.  It's not great in <5' of water.  You can put it in perspective mode and use it kinda like a 360 imaging, but that's not what you're seeing on youtube videos.  If you want an example of that, scott martin on okeechobee last year.  He used perspective mode to find big spawners.

[Swamp Girl]

Thank you, @casts_by_fly. Now that I think of it, the FFS-using YouTubers are in the middle of nothing. I always assumed that FFS would be worthless at a lot of the water I fish. 

[JHoss]

1 hour ago, Swamp Girl said:

I am genuinely confused. My ONLY contact with FFS is YouTube videos where I see anglers staring non-stop at their screens, but you guys with FFS say you rarely use them. What explains this difference?

There's people who "Scope" and people who use FFS to enhance their traditional fishing styles. It takes an incredible amount of time to become a good enough "Scoper" to consistently chase individual/schools of fish with it. The guys you see on Pro Level tours and some Youtubers have devoted that much time and effort to become good enough that they can float around staring at that screen and catching "floaters"- those bass that constantly roam and chase bait vs setting up on cover.

 

I'm not good enough with it yet to go out there and just look for fish all day then cast when I see them. Instead I use it to enhance traditional fishing techniques. So I may mark a bunch of brushpiles on Sidescan then go back and fish them with my FFS, but I'm using the FFS to make sure my cast is landing in the right spot vs casting to a fish. Same goes with weedlines, points, rockpiles, etc. In the year I've had it, I've probably caught 20 bass that I specifically targeted with scope and hundreds without it.

 

The other main way I use it is to leave it on when I'm going down the bank. Inevitably, the trolling motor will swing out and shine some kind of cover that's a few feet offshore that I wouldn't have known was there without it. Then I can run a bait by or through that cover and maybe pick up a bite.