Fishing your sounder

[Pougee]

Hi,

I haven been chasing Yellowbelly on lake Hume the last couple weeks. I have been really focusing on targeting areas that I see activity fish wise. Hardest thing is deciphering what is being shown on the sounder. Yesterday I found 2 areas of some large fish on the sounder that could possibly been carp or yellas. One spot I found a large school trolling past them I reckon I lined a couple of them, and had a few crap rise beside me I assumed they were euros. Other spot was more blob shapes on Downscan and side scan. Sitting 5ft off the bottom in 15ft of water. Spent a lot of time fishing this area with different lures with no success. I spoke to a bloke on the water who is a decent fisherman, only casts to fish he sounds up. Do any of you fish this way?

[thylacene]

Getting better at it, we use the sounder religiously when jigging for kings. The first thing to do is to turn off the fish symbols, it becomes easier to work out what is down there. It will take time, but after several months I can now tell the difference between a school of yakkas, a school of wrasse and kingfish. Part of this has involved catching whatever is down there.

We also use the sounder to find structure, and cruise around it to see if fish show on the screen before we anchor up and berley when chasing snapper.

Realize this is not lake fishing, but I reckon same principles apply.

The more you use it, the easier it gets to target the species you are chasing, they each have characteristics that set them apart, ie snapper seem to school at different depths where wrasse all seem to hang at the same depth.

[Mike Delisser]

I'm normally targeting bass rather than yellows, but I wouldn't bother casting until I found some fish (apart from casting to edges and snags of course).

[Nicko_Cairns]

some of us offshore fishos choose our lures depending on say where the spanish mackerel are holding, sometimes they'll be at 3-5 metres and other times they're right down deep so a switch to jigs or livebaits might be the go.. same same with reef fish on the sounder, for some reason sometimes they might be 2 metres off the bottom so a few cranks of the handle gets the bait a lot closer to them, generally though fishing the bottom is best.. but yes, fish your sounder.

p.s. if you're fishing a sidescan you might see that the fish are on one side of the boat so it's better to soak baits on that side..

[PeterKroll]

So, most of the stuff I've seen has been of using the sounder in deep water. Obviously its easier to get a better picture with a larger water column and bigger fish. Apart from discriminating what bottom type there is (which is very useful), can a sounder do much say, sub-20feet or less? In a reliable way, I mean.

[Nicko_Cairns]

I've heard that some of the ABT fishos cast to fish in their sounders, so I'd say yes, absolutely.

So, most of the stuff I've seen has been of using the sounder in deep water. Obviously its easier to get a better picture with a larger water column and bigger fish. Apart from discriminating what bottom type there is (which is very useful), can a sounder do much say, sub-20feet or less? In a reliable way, I mean.

[PeterKroll]

The only guide I've ever been out with is Brad Smith, and he certainly uses his sounder to target fish. He does this every day in his profession, so he gets the chance to see how whats caught correlates with what he sees. I have seen him pick the species from the picture a number of times.

He won't fish if there's nothing on the sounder.

[WalrusLike]

Does anyone think the sounder pulses might put fish off?

I know they are caught with sounders on, but maybe get more shyer species with it off?


(Using Tapatalk on iPhone so can't easily 'thank' or 'like')

[PeterKroll]

Walrus, I did research this, and there's no real agreement that I have found. However, I did come across a bit of footage from a guide in the US who reckoned that in his opinion it made no difference. However, transducers convert electrical impulses to sound waves which travel through water via pressure waves, just like audio from a speaker in air. Fish can certainly feel that, and Wikipedia says:

"The lateral line system allows the detection of movement and vibrations in the water surrounding an animal, providing spatial awareness and the ability to navigate in space. This plays an essential role in orientation, predatory behavior, and social schooling.
In a 2001 study, researchers demonstrated that the lateral line system was necessary to detect vibrations made by prey and to orient towards the source to begin predatory action.[2] Fish were able to detect movement, produced either by prey or a vibrating metal sphere, and orient themselves toward the source before proceeding to make a predatory strike at it."

So fish can certainly feel the pulse from a sounder. Whether or not it matters to them is entirely another question, and they're not talking.

When I went fishing with Brad, he had his sounder on all the time, and we caught fish all day long. Whether we would have caught more with the sounder off is debatable, but I've never caught so many fish by myself, sounder on or off. What I now think is, if you can find 'em, you can catch 'em.