The transducer is mounted on the rear of the Jon boat on the port side about 1.5' from the motor shaft. It sits about 2 inches deep under the boat.
We set the reading on the basic fish finding reading and don't use the fish id nor the GPS.
The grandson sits by the unit and watches. He and his Dad are good about figuring out where the stripers may be. This past trip the fish were under bridges or just below or above the bridges or along the shore where trees hang over the water. This behavior of hiding from the sight of Osperies and eagles enabled them to become adults.
My son gets on the bow of the boat, when we/they approach possible targets. He is using an electric motor controlled from the bow. He has his fly line striped into a stripping bucket and is ready to cast a few feet to 80-90+. Even though he can't see the fish, their goal is to put him in a casting situation upstream to cast to a spot marked by the GS. Getting upstream in a tidal river can get a little skitzy at times during a strong and high incoming tide. This past trip, the incoming tide was so strong, we got downstream from the targets and our flies/lure went up stream with the tide into the eyes and mouths of the stripers. Just before the tidal change, my son missed a good fish. As he got ready to cast again, the tide had changed and he went upstream and hooked a nice fish, maybe the same fish.
Often my son and GS will drift down stream, under a bridge and to the other side, if the tide is coming in without the electric motor going. If the tide is going out, they head upstream.
Then the math geniuses, son is a construction project manager and GS is in the Math Olympics, go into action. As they pass under the bridge, the GS will call out the water depth, then if he sights fish, he calls out the # of fish and depth and water depth. This is critical if the water is 10' deep and the fishing are holdin 5', if your fly or lure in the winter time is above or below them, will not chase it. The same applies to lake water if the water temp is 80+.
Sometimes my son will drop his fly into the water as they drift by and get it to the depth of the fish. The colder the water temp, the less effective this technique is, more on water temp impacts below.
Then if nothing happens, he will slowly manuever the boat about 30-40' away and cast and work the fly in various search patterns. If the fish are skittish and other fishers have passed over, he will go 70-90' and use the electric motor to hold while he double hauls or sometimes will slowly drop the anchor, to cast from the pivoting with the anchor. If the fish are skittish, he might wait 5-10 minutes before casting.
In water that is on our cold side, we move the flies very slowly, about 6 inches per strip and only 1-2 inches per pull on each strip. Or if the fish are holding down stream, and we basically know where they are, we will try to basically put the fly into their mouth and then bring it out and twitch it about a foot away.
My Lowrance M68c has a lot of pages, and we use the basic one without the fish id. We get the depth with varies constantly in our river, we try to avoid moss/algae/green crud which is floating mid depth unless the fish are under the crud. Then we back away and let our sinking tips work under the crud.
As noted water temp is critical a couple of degrees over 60 the fish will chase a fly. A few degrees under 60, you have to put the fly in their face and do a 6 inch strip return with the line at an inch per pull with about 5-10 seconds between each pull.
Downstream, where the river can really haul in an area of flood control work. We have used my fishing buddy fish finder to target the fish along the sides of the river and gone upstream come down stream about 40' from the side working our flies like fishing for steelhead. When the tide starts to recede, the fish get into the mainstream to catch their meals getting swept from the flood control flats. We use the finder to find the fish and anchor about 40-50' away to be able to cast into the small mouth where the flats empty into the river.
I will be working on the technique, my son and GS use with my new Pathfinder and trying the transducer in the bottom of the yak or on the back with a suction cup. I ordered the suction cup transducer holder, a new transducer and the power cables so I can rig up a yak and leave the same gear on our Jon boat.
If you can see your lure, your sonar is probably working well. Often we can see our flies and my GS uses lures and we can see them.
Again, we have it set on basic power and with no fish id on. We look for the inverted blobby V's which are usually fish. The map screen is off and only the sonar screen is lit up.
This technique works in our local lakes with bass and species besides trout. We find the fish. Then, we get about 40-50' away up wind, anchor or use an electric motor to hold us and cast up to and then into where we saw the fish holding on the finder. If the area doesn't have other fishers or yaks, a 10-15 minute wait after positioning your self away from the fish can be very effective.
The best way to describe this technique is the fish finder is like a guide who finds the fish and then puts you into position to cast where the fish hopefully are still holding. If you are fishing tidal water, the goal is to have your lure going with the tide into the face or mouth of the fish. If you are lake fishing, find the fish with the fish finder, get up wind as the food of the bass/fish will get blown away, down wind, hopefully into the mouths of the fish you are after.
Lowrance is good re talking to or texting on line with their people. Eagle may have the same service. Tell them that if they can help you, you will post how to do it on the Hobie site.
stobbo wrote:
Hi Grampa,
I was really interested to hear about the way your son/grandson are using the M68C... I have a slightly different version: mine is an Eagle Cuda SMap - basically the same product under a different brand but greyscale not colour and with a "world map" in the GPS as opposed to the US map version that you've got...
I really could do with a lesson on how to use the thing properly because I am pretty sure I cold be getting a whole lot more out of it wrt its fishfinding capabilities !
I don't know if it is the way I have it set up (shooting through hull in a bed of silicone sealant) but it doesn't seem to be very sensitive - except that I know it can pick up my lure descending through the water column so I know that it does pick up even small echoes !
It detects schools of baitfish - but it doesn't seem to show the larger fish lurking around them (which I know are there) - except that it does sometimes.
Could it be that the beam angle is so narrow that I am only getting part of the picture ?
Or do I have the sensitivity set too high?
...or maybe I just need a smart kid in the bow working the thang for me ?!
As it is, the way I would describe its working is as follows: "it doesn't tell me where the fish are but it does tell me that I am not going to catch any here".
Any thoughts anyone ?
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