For those who have one.
If you spot a school of fish and they are right below you, do you anchor
on top of them or move off the side of them.
Myself would think one would move an cast back into them
Have reason for asking, as was with someone that stayed on top of them
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What the heck does your question have to do with a GPS system ? Now then...I assum your question is about Fish Finders not GPS although some fish finders do have GPS built in.....Some fishfinders show fish directly beneath the boat and others are side finding and show to the sides of the boat. Now that being said...if you see fish on your fish finder...they are not directly under the boat when you see them...there is a slight time delay from when the sonar signal picks up the fish and beams it back to you. The fish could have moves a little bit or the boat could have moved a little also. Since you do not know and cannot tell by the fish finder what direction the fish were moving...it might pay to try fishing all around the boat. What I do a lot of times is toss out a marker buoy when I see fish on the fish finder. Then I circle the boat around and anchor within casting didtance of the bouy and then cast around the buoy. Now then...a GPS is a device that tells you where you are and can mark where you are, or where you have been and take you back to it.
I have spent most my life fishing........the rest I wasted.
PROUD MEMBER OF TEAM GEEZER
PICO Lures Field Rep
Ran into this exact scenario this weekend myself. I really think it depends on the exact situation though as each time could be different. This weekend, I dropped one small buoy when I found the school and then moved a cast off and just threw back into the school staying a good half cast off my buoy. I wanted to stay a bit off so as not to spook them since they were relating to a drop with no cover. It worked and I was able to fish this school for over 90 minutes and just whacked them.
If there is some cover around, I think you can get more on top of them and be OK. May even be more efficient from a snagging standpoint to go vertical than to cast into cover. I think they're a little less apt to move off with something to relate to. This weekend I finally had a couple boats move in on top of those fish and "join me" and the school ended up moving off into slightly deeper water. Other variables that would come into play would be cloud cover, wind, water clarity and depth of the school. My general rule of thumb though is to at least try and stay just off a group of crappie first before moving in.
-T9