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| Turn off those little fishie pictures, and you'll catch more fish. |
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| So, you want to catch more, bigger fish? No doubt, but how are you going to attain that lofty goal? Are you going to go fishing more often? Buy a newer, faster, fishier boat? Invest in all new gear? These are all great ways to boost your catch, but they’re all expensive, time consuming, and for many of us, out of the question. Fortunately, there’s another way you can start catching more fish, the very next time you hit the water: Learn how to use your electronics more effectively.
Fishfinders:
This is obviously your most-used electronic item when you’re chasing after fish. But, are you using it to the best of your capabilities? First things first: If you have your unit set to show you little fishie pictures, turn the darn thing off—you’re down-grading the information your unit is trying to provide you with. Looking at the raw data, and sometimes you’ll see large, roundish conglomerations which can easily be identified as schools of baitfish. Smaller ones may be bait or may be larger fish. Just about any machine on the market today, however, excepting the cheapest units out there, will “arch” on a single large target. Instead of a cloud, sometimes you’ll see an arch or a boomerang-like shape; that’s a single predator, as opposed to bait. Now you’ll know there are some big ones in the area. But if you leave on those little fishie pictures, you’ll never know the difference.
Another big mistake people often make with their fishfinder is reading the bottom incorrectly. This is common because your bottom reading is counter-intuitive; you’d think a hard bottom would provide a thicker, stronger signal, but it’s a soft bottom that does so. Thus, when you’re looking for a rockpile or shell bottom, you want to see a thin bottom line, not a thick one. Conversely, if it’s a weedbed or muddy bottom you’re searching out, expect to find a thick bottom line. If you have a color machine, soft bottom may appear as a thin line of red with lots of blue or green below, while hard bottom will appear as an all-red reading.
One more counter-intuitive fishfinder function that often throws people off: transducer frequency. Though it seems bass-ackwards, lower frequencies work better for deeper waters and higher frequencies work better for shallower waters. The breaking point, depending on your unit, will usually be somewhere between 300’ and 500’. That is, your unit will work best on 200-khz up to water 300’ to 500’ deep, then may begin losing bottom or detail. This is when you’ll want to switch over to 50-khz, and you’ll get a better reading. A few other things to bear in mind: The transducer’s cone is much wider at 50-khz, so fish that appear to be directly below you may actually be well off to one side or the other. And higher frequency almost always provides more detail, so keep yours set to high until you absolutely must switch it over. In fact, in my own personal experience I’ve found that some units work best on high frequency no matter what the depth.
Chartplotter/GPS:
The next most useful electronic item in your fish-catching arsenal is no doubt your chartplotter. Most anglers already realize that they should hit the MOB or Waypoint button the moment they have a strike, so they can return to the exact same spot over and over again—and hopefully, get strikes one after another, too. But many people fail to fully utilize this function when they don’t zoon their chartplotter in all the way. Zoomed out to a mile or two, or even to the wide range you used for navigating to the area in the first place, you’ll see a single waypoint dot, or several dots ontop of each other, representing your hits. But if you zoom in to a matter of feet, not miles, the exact location of each and every hit relative to one another becomes apparent. On many units, this will mean zooming in so far you lose chart details—the level at which people commonly stop zooming. I know it’s comforting to see those depth soundings on the screen, but try zooming in even farther. You’ll discover that now, you can see exactly where you want to pull the lines to get another knock-down.
Another great ability chartplotters give you is for planning, the day before you fish. Sure, you can accomplish the same thing with charts…or can you? Many modern chartplotters—those hot off the line from Garmin, Furuno, Raymarine, Northstar, and others—are now equipped for 3-D bathymetric charting. This means you can get a fish’s eye view of the bottom beneath the water. And if you don’t have one of these new units and don’t want to spend big bucks to get one, you can buy a chartography program for your PC (like Maptech’s Chart Navigator Pro) for a few hundred dollars.
Does that 3-D stuff really work? Without a doubt. The new views you get will be like puzzle pieces that suddenly make the picture complete, when you try to envision a particular hump, wreck, or channel edge. I’ve used Chart Navigator Pro to locate specific parts of hotspots I thought looked particularly fishy, gone there, found the exact breaks or abnormalities I was able to identify using the 3-D mode—and caught fish on them.
New Gear:
Along with learning how to utilize the electronics you already have, adding some new gear into the mix can also give you a big boost. An AIS (Automatic Identification System) receiver is one new item that should top an angler’s list of must-have electronics. AIS is the new system that, by international agreement, is in service on all commercial vessels. It broadcasts their port of destination, course, speed, cargo or activity, and many other details. The Coast Guard sees this as a great tool for collision avoidance and safety. We see it as a great new way to catch fish.
Bay anglers should look at AIS to find out what commercial vessels are at anchor near by. Locate one that’s anchoring overnight, and you’ve just found a honey hole. Those big commercial ships are required to have deck illumination all night long, and when you splash light all over the place in an otherwise dark bay… here comes the bait! You can expect to find sea trout, stripers, and blues all congregating under and around ships that have been anchored in the same area overnight; try jigging deep below the hull, or cast and retrieve soft plastic baits near the surface. Often, you’ll find fish up top at the front of the ship, above and around the bulbous bow. (Note: Don’t try this tactic around military vessels for obvious post 9-11 reasons.)
Bay anglers should also take a peek at the AIS to find out when and where ships will be traveling through channels which are just barely deep enough for them. Yes, AIS will tell you a ship’s draft, too. Why do we anglers care? Because ships with a draft just a foot or two less than maximum depth will churn up the bottom—sending worms, shellfish, and other critters spinning through the water column. Locate areas in the channel where there’s a tight bend and draft nearly touches bottom, and fish there immediately after the ship passes through.
Offshore anglers will want to pay attention to AIS to learn when and where scallopers are off the coast. As many offshore anglers will remember, we’ve had several seasons out of Ocean City and Indian River where the best tuna bite came while chunking behind scallopers. AIS will tell you where they’re working, and what direction they’re headed in. And no more running after scallopers only to discover they’re steaming to another place at 10 or 12 knots; a glance at the AIS will tell you whether they’re actively fishing, or if they’re cruising.
Of course, most people also know they can use radar to find fish—by finding birds, that is. And yes, this tactic does work. But bear in mind, most of the smaller, weaker (two to four kilowatt) units really aren’t up to the task, and many other units will have a tough time finding birds at more than a couple of miles. Some key details: if you want to find birds, look for a unit that has more power (at least 6 kilowatts) and a narrower beam width (1.9 degrees or less). Many people believe you’ll need an open-array dome but this isn’t true; open and closed arrays both perform up to snuff, so long as the beam width is sufficiently narrow and the power is sufficiently strong.
What happens when there are no birds to spot? Radar users have one other trick up their sleeve, when they’re fishing offshore. Lobster pot floats, strung out along the edge of the continental shelf somewhere between 350’ and 600’ of water, attract and hold mahi-mahi from July through September. Find these floats, and you can almost always find some fish. Lucky for us, many of these floats also have radar reflectors on them. Tune up the gain, and you’ll be able to spot them several miles away while the naked eye often misses them from one mile off.
Use your electronics to their fullest, and you’re going to catch more fish. They say there are no guarantees when it comes to fishing and I’m inclined to agree—except for on this one point. So tune up that fishfinder, zoom in that chartplotter, get some new antennae mounted on the hard top, and those knock-downs are sure to follow!
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