marking brush piles

[bfish]

Tie on an aluminium can or two to the upper branches, fishfinder will pick them up real easy.

[Lkconwayguru]

If close is as good as you can get, put out 8 trolling rods with 3/4 ounce weights and some minners on them and drop them to the bottom and reel up a couple of cranks and start trolling back and forth seining the water till you get snagged on the brush then throw out a marker bouy.

[Bottombumper]

I use the same method as HLLeonard. I call it the old Common Sense GPS. Depends on Ones Memory! BB

[Ladykiller]

I mark an X on the surface of the water.

[EARL KITCHENS]

My Gen 2 Lowrance HDS8 nad HDS7 are pretty much dead on. Finding the brush is easy, finding them crappie can be a little more challenging! LOL

[genec]

I have a Lowrance, Eagle, Humminbird and a hand held GPS, you must make sure you mark it right over BP, then when you are going over toward BP ,you must start in a straight line,and if gps moves a little right or left ,do not turn boat as much as it looks like you should and it will straighten itself out but if turn much ,gps will not adjust as fast as boat is moving and will bounce around, and as for hand held ,it is no more problem than the rest , many wait too late to line up on bp,then are turn right ,left back and forth. the wider the angle of xducer the easier to spot,also

[NIMROD]

I perfer cheap etrex handheld gps to locate. Keep a book with hand drawn maps and all the coordinates in it.

[CrappiePappy]

with gps fish finders not being dead on or not having a gps finder how do you all mark piles you drop ?

To answer your questions, in the context they were asked ....

If your DF GPS is not "dead on" ... you get close & search around until you find it. If you have no GPS system ... you triangulate. In either instance, a maker buoy is your friend.

Personally, seeing as how I'm a newbie at GPS, and not a brush pile dropper ... I have, so far, relied on the GPS coordinates of others. I've manually input coordinates into my Lowrance Elite 5DSI & searched for them using the GPS chartplotter mapping system in the unit. So far, I've found the unit to be "dead on" ... with the sonar screen showing the cover as soon as the boat icon is over the waypoint icon. I've yet to use the unit to mark "new" cover spots, that I've found while fishing, but anticipate that they too will be "dead on", when marked & returned to in the future.
Even though my DF is accurate enough to "get" me on the spots I have marked, once I'm there (& wish to remain there, without anchoring) I have several marker buoys within reach ... so that I can mark the spot. Boat drift from wind/current can take you way off a spot within seconds, as can catching/landing a fish & re-baiting. With a marker buoy or two marking the confines of your current spot ... all your attention can be focused on your rods, as you make your way back to that spot. This is especially helpful when using multiple rods at one time, but can also be a factor when using only one rod ... since you are made aware of the position of the cover, with a mere glance, and don't have to focus your attention on a DF or re-triangulate your position.

... cp

[ifish]

Check and see if the WAAS is turned on. Most units default to not having WAAS turned on. My units are off sometimes because off a close military base. Seems like the north is off by a little!

[crappiefarmer]

Try to go to the spots into the wind using GPS. When My brush shows up, I throw out a marker buoy 15 to 20 feet into the wind. Let the wind blow me back, then use trolling motor and just as I am coming up on the spot, stop trolling motor, drift over the spot and catch a fish or two and then let the wind blow me back off while I am dealing with caught fish. Use the wind as Your friend.CF