Does sonar signals bother fish?

[tourdriver]

I have a crappie fishing neighbor who claims that the crappie can 'sense' the sonar.
When he finds a promissing bush he shuts the fishfinder off.
Any thoughts?







When the student is ready. The teacher will come.

[robbor]

and i would think that it does bother fish if very close to where they are. I dont know about sense, but the pulse makes an audible click as probably does make a slight pulse they could feel. It has been said that many bass anglers here on our pressured lakes will turn off all electronics when still fishing for larger shy bass. I normally dont worry about it.

[Cane Pole]

NO. Fish cannot hear high frequencies. The Navy (DOD) did studies on this years ago. Typically a fish can hear from less than 1 Hz to a maximum of 1.5kHz. These are the frequencies I recall. Fish have primitive inner ears in their heads and later lines to sense sound.

I was keeping up with this report when the tree huggers were protesting the Navy about submarines vs sonar vs whales.


We had several open class discussions about this subject when I was still teaching.

The battle still wages. Protect the whales, not the American people. Geez.

[bttmline]

None of the fish I caught said anything about it!!!!!!!!

[Cane Pole]

None of the fish I caught said anything about it!!!!!!!!

They don't talk too much either......They not too sociable when the got a hook in their butt...

[chaunc]

I can remember a day fishing when the fish would bite while i had the sonar on, but wouldn't when it was off. Never noticed it again tho. That was quite a few years ago.

[fish_4_all]

One thing I have read is they can sense the pulses through their lateral lines and other biological structures. I have read though that it does not turn them off the bite having little effect on them. I doubt it does because they actually use low power signal generators that create short high frequency pulses while trolling for salmon here and it works well.

If a fish senses the electrical impulse of a twitching dying fish then it might actually be helpful if the frequency is even close to the same. Bounce it off structure and the fish could think there is a meal in there.

Either that or we are slowly mutating them so that in another 50 years we have fish that glow in the dark and are double the size with 6 eyes and 3 tails. :D

[1morecast]

You guys are hilarious! I have wondered about the sonar myself . . . I have graphed fish before that were two feet under the boat and set right there and caught them. Probably could have looked over the side and seen them. I did read an article once in NAFC where a trophy striper guide said if you run the graph/sonar the monsters will leave the area.

[curado]

I have never worryed about sonar echos. The only noise I might be concerned with is the trolling motor.

[Yates]

I can hear the sonar, I also hear the trolling motors, you can see bait react to these noises. I have read that the fish are use to the sounds and when the bait jumps the fish love it ???