Thread: What does ping on the graph do to keep the fish from biting?

Originally Posted by Specklocker

In the video of the St. Johns River Crappie Masters Tournament, it was mentioned by the winning team that another boat's fish finder was 'pinging' a lot and if they wanted to catch fish they better turn it off. He also mentioned that they did not turn on their fish finder all day. Does anybody know why? Some areas of Lake Woodruff are only 7 feet deep. Is that why?

The "ping" they're referring to is the sound wave pulse that the transducer puts out to reflect back the image's distance from the transducer. Fish in really shallow water and/or really spooky fish "can" be turned off from the ping "noise". But, I would think that with the number of boats with "pinging" electronics out there ... the fish would likely become used to it.

If they were fishing in real shallow water ... a 2d broadband sonar or DI unit wouldn't really give them much info, and a SI unit would be severely restricted. So, yeah ... having the units on under those conditions might not be entirely necessary.

TM prop wash & noise, dropping things in the boat, the shadow of the boat (& the boat itself), your shadow & movements in the boat ... in shallow/clear water ... probably rate higher on the fish spooking reasons chart, than the ping of your depthfinder. IMHO

... cp

Thanks CP! It all makes sense.

Is it only the newer machines that have an audible ping??? Older Lowrance doesn't seem to. Brother says his Elite 5 does. With sonar off can the map still be used? Always seem to come up with 'twenty questions'.--shu

Yes.

I could hear my old HB Piranha real good. Click click click

Sounds like a bunch of crappie to me.