I havnt posted a stupid question in a while so here goes.
Why is it you can troll around all day in a stocked lake with decent numbers and mark very few big fish.Take Murray for example.Good numbers of decent fish.I troll shallow,deep and from one end to the other.
My sonar beam is anywhere from 6 to 14 feet wide but I might only mark
a handfull of fish in like 4-6 hours.Strange.
Ill turn the sensitivity all the way up,but then I think it marks the tops
of weed clumps as big fish.(Ive proven this in shallow water),not sure
in deeper water but when I turn it back down those same areas dont
give me beeps like they did on max sensitivity.
I feel I should be marking big fish everywhere!These lakes are not that
big and the fish shound not be that hard to mark.Not to mention big carp,
bass,gar or whatever should also be getting marked.I have a nice hi-dollar
Hummingbird.Ideas????????
Thanks,
-kid
I think that there fewer fish than you think in all the lakes but thats not why you dont see them all the time. Sometimes they are up in the water column but a lot of time they are pegged to the bottom and much shallower than you might think. Its pretty hard to mark a big musky when its in 12 inches of water hiding in a mass of slop. Muskies by their nature like shallow waters with lots of weed cover. They cruise out into open water and feed on schools of Baitfish then depart back to their lairs and digest in nice warm weed beds where there is lots of oxygen. Some fish will stay out in the open for longer periods of time and some just roam and forage as they go. Periods of low light will find Muskies on the move looking for prey this is when we mark most of our big fish. I mark about as many fish as I expect to see every time Im out and rarely catch a fish that was marked on my electronics. Kingfisher
This is an interesting topic, about marking muskies on the graph. I have fished budd lake a number of times, and on south side of island in the deeper 25- 28ft of water i have marked giant arches and lots of them. I too have a high dollor lowrance unit. These all can't be carp, and rough fish..I would think. My father and I lowered his atlantis water camera down in budd once and seen a school of crappie and a few little walleyes, but never seen a muskie. I did mark some very large arches in those area's and lots of them. So what do you think they are, all muskies? Big walleyes, Big pods of fish schooled up, confusing the fish finder?
Now the flip side of this, on sanford, I was marking the same type of giant arches, and we lowered camera in by the bridge, and we seen a big walleye, and a bunch of big catfish and suckers. As far as budd goes?
What is your take Kingfisher?
Cameras really solve the issue . A good sonar unit just shows you acrs and blips and clouds of things. Could be big balls of slime .minnows etc. Arcs could be walleyes,Gar, pike,muskies or even thermalclines if the sensitivity is right. But like you say with a camera you can see the real picture. I can count on one hand the number of fish I have marked and caught on the same pass. I remember catching a 14 lb walleye trolling for big pike one evening . The fish marked right off the end of a steep drop off point. The strike happened right after the fish mark left my screen. I use my depth finder more to put me on the right structure than to locate fish . Now on Lake St. Clair its different. There I use it to locate baitfish pods and My gps to put me on structure and return to that area. Using to two untits together is deadly when trolling edges or contour lines. In the case of Murray Lake there are a lot fo big Gars that suspend out in the open water. So many that I snagged one with a lure out on a planerboard. Another proven fact about fish(proven by Salmon and Brown trout trollers) is that many fish will spook out away from boats that pass over them especilly in clear water lakes and rivers. Planer boards intercept these fish that are never seen by verticle sonar units. One other thing is there are units with side seeking transducers that will show you whats aff on the sides as well. That opens another can of worms. In the case of our musky lakes I trust the fact that there are muskies in all of them. I concentrate on fishing the areas that have produced for me over and over again. Points, weeds and edges. Open water when bait fish are present. All of the fish I have caught at Budd have been on classic spots. Inside turns, ends of points and in weed cover. I have yet to get one trolling there. Kingfisher
Gar pike in murray, I had no clue, that would explain prolly a lot of the arches i marked over open water, mini school of rather large arches. What would be a big gar i murray, in inches? I usually split my screen so I too have both when I troll. going back to budd, that i why I was curious too if anyone did well in open water trolling there, In early summer, late spring is when I marked a bunch of large arches and never produced a fish, and water clearity was great, could see pretty far down. so i don't know if the boat spoked them or they were in a negative mood. i know about trigger, but on the makring fish topic, gettin to what fish those may have been. It's possible they were skies, but what else is in budd that could be that big, besides a pike ( i caught one 2 years ago in budd that was 34") I hear rumors that decent walleye are pulled from there time to time, but they would have to be pretty good size to show as a large makr on my sonar. Any thoughts?
I guess it is possible that in shallower water the fish feel the sonar and move off before you get there.I talked to cool Tom Stinson on this a long time ago,and he feels the same way.Campau lake another classic example.I can make 10 passes in different lines and mark no fish.Not
even a big bass or carp???That lake is quite shallow(my beam is much more narrow also).Maybe the vibration scares the hell out of them??
Or,are they smart enough to know that sound means some kind of fake-ass fish with hooks will soon pass by. ?????
-King try out some theries on your test subjects. 
Yes the Beam or Cone as its called is narrow and the shallower the water the narrower the beam. A big Gar in Murray could exceed 45 inches. Ive had them chase Sliding Shads over 28 feet of water right up to the boat snappin at the baits. I saw one Gar in there that was a legit 47 incher. I have a picture of the one Snagged in the arse. There are Spotted Gars in most inland waters including Budd. With sonar the sensativity is really the issue. Turn up the gain and it looks like every fish in Michigan is stacked under the boat. Turn it down and you mark very little. I like the the Auto sens. as it ajusts to particles in the water to rule out false echos. We have almost bought aquaview several times just to find out what it is we see deep in the holes in Thornapple, Budd, Kettle, and other deep lakes like Murray. I have learned to not rely on my sonar to tell me if Muskies are under my boat or not. I use it as a depth finder to locate edges and pockets,deep weeds and humps. My Gps is even more helpfull when my Navionics maps come into play. I am more productive working edges with acruacy than looking for fish . I think fish that have been caught in the prop wash a few times start associating boat noise with being hooked as well(conditioning) and thats when new tactics need to be used like planer boards or Casting 😮 😯 did I say casting??? Try this, Drift over the middle of Murray or Budd. Do you still see the big archs? Kingfisher
yea i still did see big arches on budd while casting, i got a bow trolling motor with transducer built into the head ot it, and on my bow lowrance still pick up large arches, i do my sensitivity on auto as well. I wondered about cavatation from propeller blade on the trolling motor, but when i am not using it, and still see a number of large arches it makes me wonder what is truly down there, i guess when i hit budd in early sept, i will take dad'satlantis cam and see if i can figure it out better.
If your looking to get an underwater camera, get the best atlantis one, or any of the aqua views, the cheaper atlantis broke/failed to work more then a few times, and all of the marcum ones my dad had went bad. he went through about 6 camera's at gander mtn before having the good atlantis color one continue to work over and over. he wasnt rough with them, they were all just faulty.
I would have to agree. A camera is really the only way to find out what we see in the deeper waters when we mark these large arches. I am convinced though that most are thermalcline echos or big Pike as big Pike like cold water. Let me know if you try the camera trick. I would be very interested in hearing your findings. Kingfisher
The only ski we have taken from Murray was last October with the old 12 footer. Used the electric for trolling and left the Garmin at home. Now I have this noizy Honda and the only ski we have seen this year was cruising past in the shallows. Butt I got two salmon last night trolling 37 and 45 feet down. You may see me with downriggers on Murray next. Saw some used on Thornapple a few years ago. Bruce
I have been checking out fishfinders at Gander mnt. talking to some sales people who know anything about them. I was talking with one guy about how these fishfinders read something as a fish and he told me they echo the signal from the air bubble in the fish , the bigger the fish the larger the lung and air bubble in the fish and that it's from the size of this echo that the fishfinder uses to determine arch or fish size on the screen. Also he said that if you go over a spring in the lake that produces any air bubbles the fishfinder will read them as fish to and I would think there could be air pockets trapped in weeds which could give false signals to.We have all seen air bubbles in lakes in differnt places. Does anybody have the low-down, is this true or not ???? Chuck
that is totally new to me, never heard of that, i just know of the echo's bouncing of fish, not from inside them, interesting though. i'm heading to sanford in like 5 mins, should have been there at day break but i wanted to sleep in..haha I am taking the camera out, going to experiment a little. I'll post anything that revels any new clues to this.
i never made it out to play with underwater camera, ended up gettin my setuff around for my LSC trip mon and tues.
I usually dont turn off sonar to operate gps, thye are both on same unit running to gether, i can flip through pages or split screen them, but have option to turn either off, would it make a difference, are you saying there is possibly interference from gps or likewise sonar effecting eachother?
Ive marked my anchor and rope going down before,so Im not sure about the air bubble thing.Maybe new technology??
Somebody needs to make a muskie version fish finder.Beeps once for
anything from 34-44 inches and plays Hail to the Victors for anything it marks over 45 inches.
Steve S,you'd be in for one of those right!!
I agree with the King,turn the sensitivity all the way up,and you can mark
10 times the fish,or whatever it is.Pop cans,tires,dead bodies,christmas trees,license plates,Dave Ulrey's net, etc,etc..
I shut down everything if I know a big fish is near but it doenst always help. Ive had one fish in fact on a bright sunny day in gin clear water come up to my trolling motor which had a transducer pinging away on it and get to within 3 inches of it while I was watching sheer shock trying to change lures. It turned on its side kind of like a dog when it hears a squeak and turns its head to one side. I thought it was being hypnotized for a minute. I Spooked it when I brought a bucktail around past it . Most of the times I dont think sonars bother fish at all. Mike
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