Thread: Having Difficulties Identifiying Condos

last week put out 8 bamboo condos which were 12 feet tall in 20 feet of water.
immediately after i sent them overboard, i made a waypoint on GPS. one week later i return to try to find them, only had time to try and find about 5 of them though. one thing i noticed is that they do not show all that well on sonar. was wondering what some of yall do to help you more easily return to your condo or identify it on sonar. i was thinking about putting something in the top of it that wont float, a few aluminum cans with holes in them. any suggestions?

Never had any trouble with them showing on the sonar, once I found them. If you just put one condo to a spot, they can be hard to find with your GPS unit. Most consumer GPS units are only +-5 to 10 feet in accuracy. So 5 or 10 ft when you drop it and 5-10 when you're trying to find it, and you could be 20 feet or more off of your condo. Makes for a bit of a challenge to find em. I like to place two or three condos together to give myself something bigger to find.

All that said, once I've been on top of a single condo, they always show up on the depth finder quite well.

They generally look like this:

starting to understand.

i'm a little slow, but once i get it..........:D

thanks, agrihawg

One thing that helps locate structure like this is to mark it with more than one waypoint. Pitch out your condo and immediately put out a buoy right on top of it. Then maneuver your boat around the buoy in a circle about 15 ft in radius, marking three equally spaced waypoints on the way around the buoy. This way, when you pull up to it later you'll know it is somewhere inside the waypoint triangle. With only one point, you don't know if the structure is off to the left or right, forward or behind.

Good Idea Hillbilly, Thanks

Also, make sure your sensitivity isnt set so high it wont read any structure.

GABOWMAN, you are not the first to tell me that, but my garmin shows more structure when i turn my gain up. i called customer service about this and the tech was scratching his head. he said that sounds bassackwards.

Waypoint triangle is a good idea. Especially with some of the older and/or cheaper models of GPS units....like mine.

I use a Garmin Etrex and as I get to my waypoint I drop a bouy whether I see the condo or not. I then start fishing around the bouy and it won't take long to locate it.
Sometimes I drop a second bouy for a better fix. Bamboo shows up on my locator better than anything else if you can get over it.

slabbandit, started doing that this afternoon, and found everyone of them. they have been out a week now, haven't caught off them yet though. but i am not giving up.