Bottom Fishing: Holiday Double 2016
 

Hey Gang! Tough winter thus far, with lots of storms pushing down to SoCal and making it pretty hard to find a window to get out. And not even any surf to go with them:( Most of the yakkers on the coast have relegated themselves to bottom fishing for some tasty critters. So we've been doing some bottom fishing of our own.

Without sonar this fishing is nearly impossible. But just having a sonar isn't enough on it's own, you need to know how to make that thing work in the conditions you are facing on the day. Here are some general tips to help you get more out of those electronics in the deep-water target zone.

1. Lower the kHz, the better. 200 kHz isn't going to do much for you when you are fishing bait clouds on the bottom in 180'. If you have a small screen, or can't display dual frequency, you should only use the low frequency. 83 or 50 kHz. Lower kHz also has a wider cone beam, so you can see fish out to the sides and in front out behind you.

Notice how much more this fish shows on 83 kHz...
http://i.imgur.com/Z8gI3Qgl.png

2. Crank the gain! Also called "sensitivity". In the cold, oxygen rich winter water, plankton thrive. You are always going to have major clutter and "noise" on the surface. This noise is reducing the strength of your signal, and making it hard for your sonar to see below the scattering layer. Crank up that sensitivity until practically the entire top half of the column is washed out. Then up the noise rejection a click or two. You will be amazed how much better you will see fish on the bottom.

Crank the gain and all of a sudden you can see the fish near the bottom! Forget about the top half of the column, we are bottom fishing here!
http://i.imgur.com/kxtWh8Ol.jpg

3. You're looking for the bait just as much as the fish. A lot of the time, when gamefish swim through, you wont see them on the sonar. Often its just how the bait reacts to the predators. If the bait is all pushed around, or walls off really suddenly, that just as good as seeing the arches. Look for gaps in the bait cloud and try to put your mack/iron right in the gap.

This bait got pushed down to the bottom, right before a big yt crushed my mack. I didn't see the arch on my sonar until after i was hooked up.
http://i.imgur.com/rc9Edttl.png

4. Take pictures of your sonar returns! In the heat of the moment you might forget, but getting that snapshot of the screen will really help you to refine your system configurations. You can text your screenshots to me for sonar coaching, though a $20 per text fee may apply!

Took this shot as I was getting bit. You can see my bait drop right in front of the school!
http://i.imgur.com/3mdqC7wl.jpg

Luck can only get you so far guys. Get your sonar dialed, and you will reap the rewards... and realize how many fish you are missing! We had a real nice day in between storms... while the fishing was "slow".

30# Hali (well... 29.5#)
http://i.imgur.com/PMTiq9rl.jpg

Linz' PB yellowtail, 32#
http://i.imgur.com/5XO7YrUl.jpg

Enjoy... This is some of the best footage I think I've shot yet.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kcWWfYTfvbM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I'm new to the use of a FF, and this was very helpful

Thank you!

Great day and Sweeeet wintertime YT.

Nice

Big eaters Nice! :luxhello:

Linebacker Male. The thing was a brute. When I saw it on the surface I thought it would go at least 35.

Dope post Chris. Real cool of you to share some knowledge with everyone.

Congrats on your double. Bet it felt great to get that hally on the game clip. Love the go pro handoff!

THANK YOU
 

Read it twice and took notes :)

great post

Eerybody listen to Chris!

In the first screenshot, which side is 83khz? Left or right?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

83 left, 200 right. You can also tell by how much the frequency penetrates the bottom. notice how on 83 the bottom looks way "thicker".

You may recognize a certain white floppy hat similar to Gilligan's.:cheers1:

So we're focusing/discussing the string of objects in the center of the screenshot at the approx 115ft depth?
(Still trying to make sense of fish finder voodoo!)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Correct. The fish is the worm looking thing at ~115'. You can see how the bait scattered down when it swam through.

Here's another quality bottom fish caught over the holiday. A bruiser male that went 31#.

http://i.imgur.com/DHzZ7X8l.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/OEZ22BJl.jpg

Which lowrance are you using?
Thanks for the tutorial and nice fish!
45

I replied to your other thread.

Its an Elite 7 Ti.

Thank you!
45


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow great info. Thank you and agreed cool of you to share

Great write up

Very informative! I also like medium chirp mode and low chirp mode when fishing deeper. Although these are a bit shallower, medium chirp is awesome and reads great. These were from a week ago during a nice weather window.
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Sweetness right there. :luxhello:

Great tutorial
 

I am a retired Navy SonarTech, so I get it, but it is great to see the differences that you pointed out.
As a rule with sonar, the lower the frequency goes, the further the sound will travel. The higher the frequency, the greater the resolution. Sound in the audible range is used to find big object like submarines miles away, but a very high frequency is used to see the precious baby in a mother's womb.

Even with that knowledge, I have been too lazy or preoccupied trying to catch fish to figure out how to make changes like that on my Lawrence. Dropping to a lower freq will extend the range, but it is still a high enough freq to get pretty good detail.

Thanks!

Ya you're totally right... the downscan frequencies (455/800) give even greater detail. But they can see such small objects that the scattering layer can be too much for them too look through. On 83 (or med chirp) small objects will kinda all lump together as big clouds, where as on 200 or hi chirp
you might see individual sardines. If you can run dual frequency there are a lot of advantages and further inferences you can make... but that will have to wait for the intermediate lesson.

Another thing to remember is the scale of column. When fishing in deep water say over 150', the returns look so much smaller due to the scale of the fish in relation to the depth of the water. A school of yt in 200' looks almost identical to a wad of greenback in 65'.

If you're preoccupied with catching fish... tuning your sonar is how its done.

I just drop my bait down and fall asleep

Unlike George, I'm wide awake!!

Very cool Chris, I learned a ton!!! Thanks! Can't wait for more.

I've got an Elite 7 hdi that I'm replacing (since it doesn't seem to like
all the salt water I've exposed it to). I'm wondering if the touch screens end up with salt water deposits on the screen? Making for constant screen wiping.

Thanks ahead of time. Yanni

you are correct Chris
 

i have been "trying" to catch fish instead of learning to catch fish. BWE is helping me to overcome that. When I caught a BSB a few months ago, i was using a mackerel bigger than I had ever used before, and it worked! I almost didn't use it because I thought it was too big, but I dropped it down to soak while I fished another pole with plastic. "Big bait = big fish". I am now a believer.

This is what it is about
 

Great post. Sharing your knowledge and techniques is the way to be a team member of the kayak community.

Thanks.

Yes, for sure you get salt deposits on the screen. I had a windy day in gonzaga and the screen was totally covered in salt. That said, i could easily see the GPS through the residue, and the touch screen worked fine. Mine has been covered in guts and mackerel slime and touch works fine. It really seems like they nailed the enclosure on the Ti.

However, its pretty heavy. I found that I needed a 1.5" RAM ball to hold it securely.

YT also will take very large baits... and usually prefer them. I'm sure many will attest to that hahaha

Nice! Ended up watching some of your other YT vids. Cool stuff.

Excellent thread Chris. Thanks!

I use my FF all the time. Still can't figure out what I'm looking at :p

Post up some screenshots, lets see what you got going on.

That goes for whoever, post up your sonar pics and I or some other knowledgeable individual will help you out!

Probably better that way... Then you don't have to watch the 10 fish that sniff out your bait before you get one biter.

Nice write up, tutorial, and sweet fish to go along with it!

Love winter time fishin'!

:luxhello:

I hate when that happens.

You see the mark on your sonar and just as you're ready to see your rod go bendo the fish is gone.

Or you watch your dropper fall right on their heads and they don't hit it . . . you can actually see that happen to the kook in the floppy hat :doh:

Thank you!!!!!!!!!

I sure need to learn a lot more about my FF. I have the Garmin SV7 and I don't understand anything I'm seeing on the bottom. I did finally understand I was seeing bait last week, there was a lot of bait around.

However, its pretty heavy. I found that I needed a 1.5" RAM ball to hold it securely.[/QUOTE]

Hi Chris, I have the same problem with the 7TI. When I had the 5TI the 1" ram mount was fine, but now with the 7TI a hard bump or a wave over the bow on launches and the Fish Finder tilts towards me, no matter how hard I tighten the mount handle. Did you just switch out the ball on the deck to a 1 1/2" and leave the 1" on the Fish Finder head end. I love your screen shots. Super detail, it always annoys me when I see those same screen shots and have the bait right in the middle of it and there are no takers. It is so easy to tell that those are large fish and likely yellow tail but just don't go for the nice mac on your line. I guess I got a little spoiled by the bite the past couple of years, all you had to do was troll a mac in the area of the bait clouds and WHAM!. Thanks for sharing. Mark