need help

[microman]

iv'e found were the fish congregate in the lake, they stack up in the middle and wont bite anything i throw at them...

any tips

[zach t]

dynamite

[microman]

that dident work either, the fuse ran out before it got to the bottom, longer fuses burn out and the shotgun didnet work either

[zach t]

What kind of lake? Terrain? Depth? These things matter.

[FordNFishinLover]

Hahaha, good comeback.

I'd try using a t-rig worm and bug the death out of them. Force them to feed.

[bigtimfish]

The same thing happens to me all of the time trust me. I see them suspending between 8' and 15' throw DD22's, DD14's,traps, c rigs, tx rigs,senkos, and can't catch the first one.

[Crestliner2008]

If the bass are suspended, you can catch them with a wacky rigged Senko, suspended under a slip float. Check the Senko articles above. There, I've outlined my technique, on just how to achieve success with it. It's easy to adjust the drop of the worm to their exact holding depth this way.

If they are on the bottom, then try drop shotting a 3" - 4" finesse worm vertically - right over them. Shorten the dropper so that your offering is only about 6" above the bottom. Do not over work the worm! This cannot be over-emphasized. A lot of long pauses between a few easy twitches, will get their attention.

If there is a stiff breeze and you are having trouble staying over them, I'd recommend anchoring; move the boat about 15 yards into the wind, ahead of the school. Drop the anchor and feed line until the rear of the boat is over them. The boat will swing slowly back & forth over the school and give you ample drop shot access to all fish there. Turn off your sonar as soon as you are properly positioned! There exists a lot of disagreement on the necessity of doing this; I do it just to put the odds in my favor.

At the same time you can put out your Senko float rig for added presentation and coverage. In this case of bottom holding bass though, adjust your Senko to hover about 2' off the bottom. The breeze will bounce and agitate the Senko, almost guaranteeing you a bite!

One of these two presentations will get you into your fish. Good Luck! 

[Paul Roberts]

Great post Crestliner!

[CJ]

I noticed you said,"stacked up"? I'm guessing you seen them on your DF? Bass normally don't stack up as in several arches on top of each other. Usually it's more of a horizontal display of arches. Crappie stack up. Just a thought.

[WRB]

Interpreting sonar signal returns to identify suspended bass can be extremely difficult. Sonar bounces off high density objects and fish are low density tissue with a high density air bladder. The sonar signal return is actually the air suspended within the fish, a bubble in the water or other dense debris.

Trying to determine a bass from any other fish or air bubble with sonar signal is nearly impossible, unless you catch them. One method is to determine how the sonar target moves or is positioned relative to cover, structure or baitfish and that takes a lot of time on the water.

The sonar signal is cone shaped, like a spot light beam and covers a small area. Staying on top of moving suspended fish with a sonar unit is difficult in open water. Stacked fish are usually strings of air bubbles from decaying matter or spring water, a tree and sometimes schools of smaller fish, bass rarely stack vertically.

WRB

[J Francho]

These aren't bubbles, but they aren't bass either.  A drop shot Gulp! minnow revealed their identity, yellow perch.

[fishfordollars]

What makes you so sure they are bass.

Could be anything. If they are whites, crappie, or any other type of fish that may be why you are not catching them.

Like in the picture above they probably are not bass at all. Bass are structure, cover oriented and most of the time they relate to something. Even when they suspend it will be out over a channel, hump, tree, point, or some other type to focus on.No way to tell.

[CJ]

J Franco posted what I was thinking. A 1/4 oz. white hair jig on a float-n-fly might answer your questions or a dropshot with a 4' finesse worm. Fish them vertically over the images you found with very light movement if any.

[midnighthrasher]

Dropshot or weightless slow fall a 3" berkley hollow belly minnow... I used this in the canadian bass open last year ( berkley B1 ) and it put 2 fish in the boat that werent taking anything. they take forever to fall weightless but once they get down there get ready!!!!!

http://www.***.com/descpageSFSBERKLEY-BPHST.html

[Crestliner2008]

I've seen a lot of perch on my sonar and they didn't look like the arch images on JFrancho's sonar. Perch appear as a more solid mass (like bait balls) and rarely suspend as individuals like this (at least in my neck of the woods).

The fish on his sonar could very well have been game fish, suspending over a school of perch. I've verified this happening several times with an Aqua View. Perch have a tendency to stay close to the bottom most of the time, in a rather compact school. They will rise up and smack an offering suspended, or traveling through the upper water colum however.

The only practical confirmation comes with a viewing camera system of some kind. Association over time, between the camera and sonar, clarifies what you are really looking at, regardless of the outcome. Large separated arches are almost always a game species of some kind. Not meaning to be argumentative, just my opinion - I could be wrong.

[WRB]

The point is; stacked suspended sonar arches are rarely bass, in fact they are rarely fish. A ball of bait fish is usually tightly bunched mass (air bladder bubbles) with a few big arcs around them; those could be predators and worth your time and effort.

During the cold water period a holographic 1/2 oz Little George or structure spoon will quickly solve what is out there mid lake.

[J Francho]

Crestliner, they appear like you describe when the graph is in narrow beam mode. This was in wide beam mode. Game fish over 3 lbs. are about the 1/2 to 2/3 length of the graph. Now, to be totally accurate, I didn't catch the suspended fish. The fish I caught were on the bottom. Zoomed in, in narrow beam mode, I could see my sinker and bait. Then basically thick lines rose of the bottom, to my bait. A little jiggle-pop of the bait, and I had a dozen or so perch in the boat, 11-14" long. So, the smaller arches could very well be bait, though bait balls this time of year show as MUCH larger, solid red and yellow clumps. I had one that was at least a football field long.

[Paul Roberts]

I've seen a lot of perch on my sonar and they didn't look like the arch images on JFrancho's sonar. Perch appear as a more solid mass (like bait balls) and rarely suspend as individuals like this (at least in my neck of the woods).

The fish on his sonar could very well have been game fish, suspending over a school of perch. I've verified this happening several times with an Aqua View. Perch have a tendency to stay close to the bottom most of the time, in a rather compact school. They will rise up and smack an offering suspended, or traveling through the upper water colum however.

The only practical confirmation comes with a viewing camera system of some kind. Association over time, between the camera and sonar, clarifies what you are really looking at, regardless of the outcome. Large separated arches are almost always a game species of some kind. Not meaning to be argumentative, just my opinion - I could be wrong.

That's what I was thinking too. Mighty dense arches for small fish, esp with such a depth range setting. Of course, in the Great Lakes it is possible to find 2lb perch!

What is telltale is not the length of the arches--a function of cone angle and speed of boat--but the density of the readings seeing color in there. Those look like bigger fish than perch. They are also un-perch-like being so high up and loosely arranged, as Crestliner points out. (They look like trout to me unless it is mid-summer in the bay they might then be drum?) The perch caught on bottom (where they belong) would not likely be seen on sonar as they would get lost in the bottom returns.

But the point is valid -marked fish may not be bass.

It's not a fair comparison really, but here's a shot of two suspended bass on a 200kHZ TD (note short arch). There was a third, but I caught it a 17incher. There are perch in this water (up to about 12) and none of them create dense enough returns to show color.

[WRB]

Getting way off topic. Arches are a result of the sonar target moving into then out of the sonar cone. The thin tip being the furthest distance as the fish first enters the cone signal. As the fish passes through the cone and is in the strongest single return zone the arch is reaches it's maximum width, then tapers back down as the fish exits the single cone. The length of the arch is determine by how fast the target enters and exits; stationary fish with the boat moving at say 5 mph; the arch is nearly a inverted V. If the boat is not moving and target is moving through the cone slowly; the arch is more like a straight line. The thickness of the arch depends on the size of the air bladder inside the fish.

Perch, bass , crappie, bluegill the same size will have similar size air bladders; you can't tell the difference from the shape of the arc. Big carp and big bass look the same to sonar for example. Faster moving fish make longer arcs. Stair step arcs, top to bottom, are almost always air bubbles.

Sonar interpretation takes a lot of time on the water, unless you are using the new technology coming out as we speak; StructureScan and down looking SI for example, will eliminate a lot of the issues with sonar interpretation.

WRB

[J Francho]

That's what I was thinking too. Mighty dense arches for small fish, esp with such a depth range setting. Of course, in the Great Lakes it is possible to find 2lb perch!

What is telltale is not the length of the arches--a function of cone angle and speed of boat--but the density of the readings –seeing color in there. Those look like bigger fish than perch. They are also un-perch-like being so high up and loosely arranged, as Crestliner points out. (They look like trout to me –unless it is mid-summer in the bay –they might then be drum?) The perch caught on bottom (where they belong) would not likely be seen on sonar as they would get lost in the bottom returns.

But the point is valid -marked fish may not be bass.

It's not a fair comparison really, but here's a shot of two suspended bass on a 200kHZ TD (note short arch). There was a third, but I caught it –a 17incher. There are perch in this water (up to about 12”) and none of them create dense enough returns to show color.

I don't think you can make accurate comparisons using two different brands of units.  Bigger game fish show up as MUCH deeper arches than in my image above.  Much, much deeper.  As WRB pointed out, the length has more to do with speed of the boat or fish. This is why, once I've started to fish, I don't rely on the graph history.  Its just that - history.  I'll use the real time scanner on the right, like a peeled flasher.  But, I do agree that when you switch to narrow 200 kHz beam, your moving targets are in the cone less and make tighter arches.  As far as showing "color," I can easily manipulate how much color shows in the returns via the sensitivity.  I generally keep mine pretty low, around 5 or 6 on a 20 unit scale.  When zoomed in, a 12-14" perch looks like a hoss approaching your bait, which when using Gulp Minnow, looks like a thin yellow line.  You can definitely see the relativity between bait and predator.

I wish I had pics of the bait balls with HUGE arches below, and at the edges that I saw on Port Bay two weekends ago.  I'll try getting some more, though the weather has to behave since all I have to shoot with is a $1600 DSLR, LOL.

[Catt]

By simply looking at an arch on a screen it is impossible to tell what species of fish it is if in fact the arches are fish.

Now back to the task at hand, try drop shot, deep cranks, or jigging spoons 

[tnbassfisher]

I'm just not a fan of cracking in the open like that. When there doesn't seem to be much structure. Which also makes me wonder if it is bass that you are seeing.

[Paul Roberts]

I don't think questioning whether sonar marks are bass or not is off topic.

No, we can't ID by marks alone, (no one suggested we can) but we can put together the facts at your disposal, environmental context and behavior, and make a pretty good guess.

Good thread I think.

[Catt]

I don't think questioning whether sonar marks are bass or not is off topic.

No, we can't ID by marks alone, (no one suggested we can) but we can put together the facts at your disposal, environmental context and behavior, and make a pretty good guess.

Good thread I think.

Y'all ever fish much for Crappie, White Perch, Calico Bass, Speckled Perch, or Sac-a-lait; small schools of 8-12 will suspend individually in open water over creek channels or brush piles appearing like bass on a sonar screen.

[WRB]

Out west in the winter crappie schools appear suspended near structure or cover, usually no more then 5' to6' depth variance, not stacked, more grouped like a school of bait fish. Bass tend to be spaced further apart and closer to the structure or cover, most of the time, unless feeding on bait fish.

WRB