fish finder fact or fiction

[bama647]

now,i love my eagle 320 put truth is it tells me water temp/depth/ and unseeable structure and cover. i can find deeper holes and channels and ledges. my question is does anyone ever say "hey theres some fish lets catchem" and have success. i see fish all the time on mine and have stopped and tried to locate them. has anyone had success catching the fish they
see on there graph or am i just missing something?

[FishnLine]

I had a friend of mine took his dad's boat out one night, went out on the water, turned on the fish finder, and fish were all over the screen. He and some friends fished a few hours without NOTHING! LOL Then he figured out that when he turned it on he had held the button down and the unit was in display or test mode, he turned it off and back on and there was nothing below him.

Back to your question. I turned the fish id off on mine, because it was lying to me and it has helped me a lot. I find fish and do have luck catching them sometimes, but I am mostly looking at the bottom contour and for baitfish.

[slabbandit]

For the most part I don't look for fish just depth and structure. I will note at what depth I am seeing the shad and I may target brush in this range.
Is it just me or does the depthfinder show fish better and less clutter in the winter months?
One time while fishing a deep backwater hole off of the Arkansas River I was not catching any crappie spiderrigging in 3 to 4 feet of water along the bank adjacent to this deep hole. We had had several unseasonably warm days and some friends had been tearing them up right on the bank.
Well by the time I get to go over there it turned cold again and after 3 hours of fishing up and down this bank all I had caught were 2 small Kentucky Bass. I turned out over the deep hole and noticed a bunch of fish arches at 8 feet deep over 17 to 19 feet water. Using large minnows and corks I slid the corks from 3 foot to 8 foot. This was around 10:00 am. I loaded the boat on the trailer at 12:00 noon and had 30 slabs each identical and weighing about a pound a piece! They had 3" shad falling out of their mouths in the boat!
This is still one of my most memorable trips and I owe it all to my electronics.

[Jerry Blake]

my question is does anyone ever say "hey theres some fish lets catchem" and have success. has anyone had success catching the fish they
see on there graph or am i just missing something?

Ever day! If you properly adjust your graph and learn to interpret what you see on it, it will save you a lot of time trying to determine where and what depth to fish. It will show you the presence of fish on a condo, how deep they are holding, what side of the condo they are holding on and even how active they are. If you catch a fish right under your transducer (within its view) you can see the fish coming up as you reel it in. You can even see fish come up
and check out your bait at times. See if the information in this thread will help you - http://www.crappie.com/gr8vb3/showthread.php?t=27679.

Remember though that just because you find fish they won't necessarily bite on any bait presented in any manner.

[bobberdown]

I turn mine on to find the fish then off while I fish. I think they can pick up the sound waves from the finder and it slows the bite. That's just my way of thinking and it has worked for me.

[tarheel]

My opinion is that alot of the fish you see are bait fish (schooling shad). I use the fish finder to find structure.....

[Speck]

When I'm trolling cranks, I'll see schools of shad with larger fish underneath. It's fun when you can call a hit before it happens. If you see that image while trolling, get ready, 9 out of 10 times, you'll get bit on at least one line.

[Jerry Blake]

My opinion is that alot of the fish you see are bait fish (schooling shad). I use the fish finder to find structure.....

It's easy to distinguish between balls of baitfish and larger fish. The big Gizzard Shad - 8 to 12-inches long - are the ones that give us the most trouble. Putting a camera down will tell you real quick whether they are big shad or crappie but it's often both mixed together.

[gabowman]

I use mine for looking at structure and finding balls of baitfish. During a night stalk I leave mine on and you can actually see fish coming in under the baitfish during the stalk. (While sitting still fish will make a steady line as long as they are under the cone of the sonar.)

Here's a thread you guys may want to check out sometimes...

http://www.crappie.com/gr8vb3/showthread.php?t=21721

[mrwillis]

I only use mine for depth, temp, and structure. Shoot, if I tried to fish for fish that I knew were there, I wouldn't ever catch them. I just fish where I think they should be...then get lucky!