Fish Finders

[SoCalEDC]

Originally Posted by Jonesdds

Thank you good info. The only real benefit of GPS for me at least initially is marking a sweet spot on a lake. For example, Crowley Lake near bishop. Pretty shallow most of the time, at least where the fish are. Depending on levels, weeds, etc they can move around but there’s spots where you are best positioned, even a few feet matter. But, you’re not fishing directly below you but ideally you’d find the spot, generally an extension of a creek bed in the lake where the water was a bit cooler. We are talking 8-15 feet down and Stillwater nyphing just above the bottom. Spent a number of days with Kent Rianda from Troutfitter there, mostly McGee bay, and his fish finder seemed to be for 3 things(if I understood):

Depth
Fish
Remembering the spot the last client was successful given the same conditions

There’s a few lakes relatively close to my place in Utah and a few in CA that this kind of fishing works, maybe a lot more that don’t get fished this way.

So for this type of fishing I assume Traditional sonar is just fine as you’re passing over the spot, at 10 ft give or take, correct. But then I could see casting into shallows towards shore with streamers or even dry flies, doesn’t sound too different than bass fishing so side imaging, although raising cost, could be very beneficial, am I correct?

the sonar aiming down is going to be a cone. it comes out of your transducer and opens as it goes down. so if you are in shallow water and you are using a higher frequency with a smaller angle of projection your cone "base" or the diameter of your cone at the bottom will be much more narrow. the angle for each frequency is fixed based on your transducer, therefore the depth will determine the diameter of the cone base.

Side imaging will show you what is along the sides of your vessel. you will see bait, tree roots, shrubbery, etc.

When you are talking about fresh water fishing for the most part, you are looking for structure as your primary targets. This also relates to some salt water fishing, such as rockfishing or bass fishng in which case the fish relate to or orient themselves near structure. The name fish finder has a nice ring to it, but in reality its a depth finder that works by indicating the distance between your transducer and what ever is bouncing the signal back at it. when you go over hump, a rock, a branch, a fallen tree, grass, etc. it indicates a depth change, and depending on the material a level of "return". meaning it bounces off of something hard like a rock, or soft like mud. usually this strength is designated by color differences.

The reason gps would be handy in an application where you dont need navgation per se, is because you can mark those structure points like rocks, and fallen trees, stuff that doesnt move (generally speaking) so that you can find your way back to them quickly. If you find fish holding in a certain area, mark that spot and you can get back to it quickly, and you will also probably notice that there is some sort of structure there. The old saying that 90% of fish are in 10% of the water is fairly accurate, and most fish (primarily freshwater fish) are not just cruising around willy nilly with no relation to their surroundings.

look on youtube there is a ton of info on fish finders and other electronics for fishing.