The Art Of Reading A Fish Finder.

[shefford]

Well today we went out of a new bar and tried 5-7 reefs that were given to us by a few mates. We usually head out on the bar's futher south 20kms and know most of the reefs and marks off the back of our hands down there so it's not a problem.

Swell was meant to be 1metre but was well over 2 metres as we crossed out the bar so we stuck to the 12/18s/ and 24s.

The problem was we had trouble reading our finder on the reefs we have never been 2 before.

We arrive @ the gps location and see the breaks, holes and pinnacles in the reef, usually we get the fish"id" popping up everywhere, we had that on the first 2 reefs we got a few snapper and missed a few trag jew.

Headed out to 2-3 24 reefs where 20+ boats were on, hit the reef and scouted around for 300 -1km of the reef and could not see a single fish"id", not even signs of massive structure on the bottom. No one seemed to be pulling up fish on the reef so we drove around for a bit and still nothing

What should i look for with the finder apart from the fish "id" ?- depth change, temp change?

Help is appreciated much.

[michaelrdoyle@gmail.com]

What should i look for with the finder apart from the fish "id" ?- depth change, temp change?

Part of the secret of being a great fisherman is spending the time discovering new territory. I hope to be a great fisherman one day.

But until then - generally turn fish "ID" off - and learn to read the fishfinder yourself. FishID is OK - but in the long term, you will get more senstive information if you learn to read it yourself.

Depth change is the other major thing to look for - it signals drop offs etc.

Mike

[slinkymalinky]

G'day Iricangi,

Mike is spot on... turn off the fish ID. The fish ID dramatically reduces the amount of information you'll get from your sounder because it doesn't allow you to distinguish between fish, floating weed, big fish vs tight schools of small fish... it won't even show a lot of returns like a big fish that may just catch the edge of the beam, etc, etc.

The best way I've found of learing how to use a sounder effectively is to get hold of any of the Fishing DVD series or better still get hold of a dvd specifically on using sounders effectively by Rick Huckstepp called "understand your sounder". It's very simple but you'll be amazed what you'll start to see when you put his info into practice.

Cheers, Slinky