Doubts about fishfinders...

[kllrbee]

Hey all,

After reading and reading and then...reading some more, it seems to me that the key to catching bass is location and presentation.

Im still very new at this so Im still trying to find out what types of baits I like to use and what colors.  So far spinnerbaits, top waters, and jigs are what I like cuz my lakes are super weedy.  I caught a few with cranks right at the dropoff and I dont have the skill yet to work plastics even though I did get lucky on a 4" crly tail a few times. 

Ill stick with the recomended colors for different conditions until I find what works best for me.

But am I wrong in saying that the lure and color dont make as much difference in the big picture as finding the fish and making them want it?

So here is where my question comes in.

I fish off of a kayak that I rigged up with an Eagle Cuda 300.  It is the first FF I have ever owned so I am not familiar with any of them.

So when I go out to my lake, I try to find some good spots and usually the FF will start going off as well.  But I get no bites. 

So its either my presentation or Im in the wrong spot.

Can I actually trust the FF when it shows fish? 

Are they there and Im just presenting wrong?

Just curious what your thoughts are on this.

I know I still need to work on recognizing structure and cover as well as presentation and thats probly why Im not catching that many fish. 

Thanks

[Randall]

Just because you have found fish doesn't mean they will be easy to get to bite. I catch most of my tough to catch fish on soft plastics fished very slow.

[Lund Explorer]

If you're looking at a school of "fish symbols" on your screen, there's a pretty good chance that they really aren't fish.  Go through the menu on your unit and see if you can turn off that function.

Then start reading the source material you can find about operating fish finders.  This site has some good information, and I'm sure that Eagle's website or your owners manual will too.  Another good source could be looking through youtube on how to videos.

I've been using a number of different depth finders over the years, and I don't ever think I caught a bass that showed up on the screen. 

[Tuckman]

Unless you are using a quality unit, I would not worry about what it shows as "fish" but rather use the finder to locate structure and baitfish. The fish will be nearby.

A high quality unit is worth its weight in gold.

[kms399]

if your finder is showing those cartoon fish symbols you need to turn that off. those cartoon fish could be anything, floating bit of weed stick you name it. go into the menu and look for sonar features i think and turn fish symbols off. it has been a few years since I dealt with a cuda though. once that is fixed you will notice you don't mark as many fish. what you will see is hash marks or arks which are fish. but really what you are looking for is structure, once you find that you have to combine the things you read here with what you are seeing on the depth finder to determine if it is a worth while spot or not. it takes a lot of time on the water to determine just what you are seeing. keep at it and keep a log to help remember key factors that made a spot good or bad.

[badcrawdad]

Turn off the fish ID it is completely useless. I have the same unit. It's good for depth, locating drop offs, and deep structure but garbage for marking fish. I've been using mine for about 2.5 yrs. Several times with fish id on it has shown fish when i can clearly see below that there is nothing. I have also never seen any indication of a fish when the Id is off. So for me its for depth only.

[K_Mac]

Don't be discouraged if your unit doesn't do a good job of finding isolated brush piles and separating fish from structure. Knowing the depth, and being able to identify bottom irregularities, e.g. humps, channels, etc. will make you a better fisherman. Once you determine at what depth the fish are holding, you can then begin to find other similar areas. It takes some practice, but it is worth the effort. Good electronics are amazing, but I learned on low end stuff back in the day when low end was very basic. Good luck.

[Red]

I have the very same unit as you do.  You need to turn that feature off, I think it is "fish ID" or something like that.  I have yet to see an "arch" on mine, but that dosen't mean I haven't caught fish.  I rely on it to show me the bottom contour like humps and drops and such.  I have also seen some "blobs" floating on it which I believe were baitfish.

[kllrbee]

Excellent. Thank you very much for the quick responses guys.

That is actually a relief that the fish ID is useless and picking up just about anything in the water. I was starting to think that I must be doing something seriously wrong. At least now I know that I was probly at a bad location.

When I first got the unit, I entered all the settings and put fish ID on with alarm just to see what it would do. That alarm got old in about a minute. It started going off like mad the first weed bed I went over. Turned that off, but left on those silly little cartoon fish. I guess they amused me.

Mostly, I have been using the FF for depth readings and then trying to incorporate what I have learned about structure to find good spots.

So that leads me to believe that I have some work to do on structure, but at least I can rule out the FF as a reliable source and just concentrate on using what I learn.

Thanks again guys. Very helpful.

BTW, good idea about keeping a log kms.  Ill start to do that.   

[flipin4bass]

I gained what little I know about sonar growing up with a an old Navy man/fish biologist. All fish finders, aside from the newer side imaging units, basically operate the same regardless of the cost. The difference exist in the software and how it interprets the information. Fish finders do locate fish as it is a matter of target density. Sound waves pass through flesh and bone quite differently from other objects so, the better the software, the better the returns. I don't have a unit on my kayak, but I have two units on my other boat. I'll use those units when I'm on a lake for the first time and I want to find where the structure is. Once I "know" a body of water I turn them off. Long before the battles began between conservationist and the U.S. Navy over the use of sonar and whales, George (the biologist I mentioned) told me that sonar drives fish down and away from your boat. I've always remembered his advice and even noticed that my catch ratio improves when my units are off. If you don't think those units can be irritating to fish, try swimming under a boat when those transducers are pinging away. You'll be surprised at how much those pings are magnified in water.

[BobP]

One thing guys get confused about is what fish look like on screen when you turn that useless Fish ID off.  The fish arches you see on the demos and ads for sonars is something you don't often see.  What you see more often is a "worm" shape on the screen.  The thicker the worm the bigger the fish, and a school of bass looks like a pile of worms.  A school of shad, on the other hand, looks like a cloud.  Individual shad are too small to register but the whole school will.  With experience, you can get pretty good at distinguishing different kinds of fish:  bass, shad, crappies, etc.

We would be better off if guys didn't call sonar "fish finders".  The best use of sonar in most lakes, most of the year, is to show you structure that should be holding fish, not necessarily the fish themselves.  Rock piles, brush piles, drop offs, channel beds, etc.  Maybe that's not critical in shallow Florida lakes where emergent vegetation shows you where to fish, but it's bread and butter stuff in the rest of the country, especially when fishing off shore. 

[Catt]

kllrbee, here's another little bit of advice!

Just because you don't see fish don't mean they aint there

[Bassin_Fin@tic]

I use the same kind of unit as well and another thing about the fish id: Any grass you go over or any timber or brush shows up as fish unless you turn it off.You will also never be able to identify a school of bait with it on.

I too have a question though since this is my first unit as well and have been using it for a few years. I understand that seeing actual fish arches is hard to achieve. My question is: How does your boat speed and screen scroll speed(chart speed) affect whats showing up on the screen? I noticed when I am sitting still or barely moving I get tons of screen clutter or a supposed "arch" ends up being a drawn out straight line across the screen. I can't separate whats what :-/

Don't now if the question makes sense. Maybe some one chime in? Thanks. 8-)

[cart7t]

1. Most of the manuals that come w/ fishfinders will state somewhere that the fish ID feature isn't accurate.  Those things will show just about anything as fish.  Turn it off and learn how to adjust it to get fish to show hooks.

2. Location, depth and presentation are the keys to finding and catching fish.  This website has a multitude of articles listed at the top under "fishing articles".  Study them and put them to use.

3. Lure choice and selection has more to do with finding the correct lure that can be presented at the correct depth at correct speed and action that causes the fish to strike it given the mood the fish is in at the time. ie: Fish in a positive, aggressive, feeding mood.  Fish in a neutral mood or in a negative mood.  That can be determined by how a caught fish attacked your bait.  Was it a fast moving bait and the fish struck it visciously?  That indicates a fish in a very positive mode.  A very light bite on a subtle type bait would indicate a neutral to negative mood.

[Dave P]

You can also tweak the sensitivity up, also, and get a better picture of what's underneath.

[RoLo]

Two Suggestions:

1) Look for structure, not bass

2) If you can't find structure, then fish the drop-off and forget structure ;D

Roger

[fishin10]

Here's another thing you need to consider. The degree of your transducer. If I remember right, a 15 degree cone will only show you a 3' diameter in 15' of water.

[WRB]

Don Iovino book; finesse bass fishing and the sonar connection, is a hands on book that will help you understand your sonar unit, plus finesse bass fishing techniques.

A kayak isn't all that stable on the water and the transducer will be moving with wave action, that also distorts the signals. Disable both the fish ID and demo settings.

WRB

[NateFollmer]

I have an eagle sonar unit also. It shows any little lump of grass as a fish. If you turn that fish id off, turn the sensitivity up and the screen speed (i think they call it the refresh rate) down it does an ok job of showing you the bottom and cover.

[Matt Fly]

How does one even know if they are bass?  could be a variety of fish down there in most cases.

[J Francho]

I have my unit pretty well dialed in, most of the time. You have to not only be able to identify fish, but also identify areas that are holding willing to bite fish. They also have to be bass, if you're fishing for bass.

None of these are bass. The only thing biting in this deep flat were yellow perch, on the bottom.

[CAdeltaLipRipper]

Yea u can just make sure its not a garmin lol weve had those and theyre TERRIBLE. Basically the only thing u get out of them is depth and water temperature. Actualy,the higher up ones do work pretty well...its just far from HumminBird 15 inch screen Switchfire radar with side imaging and down imaging and gps and weathersmart....hahahaha