Do fishfinders spook fish?

[scugpg]

I use a Lowrance 522 and often where I fish I'm in 5-10ft of water. Just curious - how many of you turn off the sonar when you fish shallow water? What depth do you turn it off?

[Greencoachdog]

I'm stubborn and won't turn mine off!

 

If you're casting you should probably ok, but if you're jigging or dropshotting directly beneath the boat you may want to turn it off or turn the sensitivity down like glen suggested.

 

The high powered units may not be good for longline trolling directly behind the boat ( planer board would solve this though), and downrigging in less that 25 FOW.

 

I was skeptical as to wheather high powered units spooked fish, but yesterday convinced me!

 

How many watts is your unit?

Edited September 18, 2009 by GCD

[Billy Bob]

The boat scares the fish, not the sonar unit.

[Uncle Buck]

explain icefishing then...

 

12 feet of water & 2000 Watts of Marcum Power

 

[canadadude]

I was just gonna say my vexilar atracks them hahahahahah, I get like 5:1 more fish or greater using the sonar

[Greencoachdog]

The boat scares the fish, not the sonar unit.

 

Yep!!! All the fish I caught yesterday were terrified of the boat when I was reeling their little butts to it!!!

 

 

 

explain icefishing then...

 

12 feet of water & 2000 Watts of Marcum Power

 

 

That's the thing, 2000 watts isn't that powerful... the unit I was using yesterday is 2400 watts and fishing 15 FOW, it's the 4000 watt unit that was spooking the fish in shallow water!

Edited September 18, 2009 by GCD

[Dara]

The boat scares the fish, not the sonar unit.

 

This summer I was trolling for pike and looking out the side of the boat. We saw 6 in the 6 to 10 lb range swimmimg along with the boat. No worries at all. This was with my 60 4 stroke running.

[Fish4Eyes]

IMO if their real hungry and actively feeding they probably wont care, but if their finicky, there is always a chance that they could be spooked.

[Syn]

imo yes sonar pinging in shallow water does spook and/or irritate some species like bass (I don't think pike spook as easily, because I seem to catch the majority of them within 10ft of the boat and often see them striking the lure).

 

As the other poster noted, we probably spook them much more by thumping around in the aluminum boat and chucking in the concrete anchor instead of letting it go slowly, outboard motor driving too close to where you are going to fish instead of drifting in.

 

There are theories blaming US Subs for beached dolphins who's only escape from the loud power sonar was by getting out of the water.

 

I use the fish finder in less than 30ft of water as a bottom depth measuring tool and for checking for hard or soft weedy lake bottom. The beam is so narrow in 30ft of water that you essentially have to be directly over the fish to see the arch show on the screen. But I wish I had the money for a good side finder. I would find that more practical in shallow water under 30ft.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Syn

[Fish4Eyes]

I fished beside a guy on Nipissing who was dragging a lindy rig on bottom and his shaft length on the trolling motor was too short, thus his prop was splashing on the top of the surface, and he caught more pickerel than me in the same spot, while I was using the same set up (with proper shaft length). He does well too as he catches almost every outing. Go figure eh

[Syn]

I fished beside a guy on Nipissing who was dragging a lindy rig on bottom and his shaft length on the trolling motor was too short, thus his prop was splashing on the top of the surface, and he caught more pickerel than me in the same spot, while I was using the same set up (with proper shaft length). He does well too as he catches almost every outing. Go figure eh

 

 

But how deep were the fish. If they were in say 40+ ft of water, would prop splashing even matter?

[blaque]

ever hear the one about dragging a length of chain on the bottom while drifting to kick the bottom up and thus attracting feeding fish? I have yet to put this one thru any testing lol

[NAW]

ever hear the one about dragging a length of chain on the bottom while drifting to kick the bottom up and thus attracting feeding fish? I have yet to put this one thru any testing lol

 

 

I did that in PEI once.

 

We got skunked becuase of a drastic change in water temps. Hard to tell if this chain thing would have done anything though.

 

We where using it more to slow down our drift, rather then to churn up bottom though.

[trapshooter]

I know some guys who shut off their graph when they're casting for muskies.... otherwise mine is always on, even jigging walleye in < 10'

[CLofchik]

AAAAAAALLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Seriously though, this is nothing new. Go swimming under your boat with your sonar on.

[Vanselena]

explain icefishing then...

 

12 feet of water & 2000 Watts of Marcum Power

 

 

I heard Marcum has gone belly up. Which would explain why their phone number doesn't work.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Vanselena

[scugpg]

I use the fish finder in less than 30ft of water as a bottom depth measuring tool and for checking for hard or soft weedy lake bottom. The beam is so narrow in 30ft of water that you essentially have to be directly over the fish to see the arch show on the screen. But I wish I had the money for a good side finder. I would find that more practical in shallow water under 30ft.

 

I hear ya...I love my Lowrance but I fish pretty much in 20ft or less...which means I'm only seeing at most a 6ft circle of fish on the bottom.

[Greencoachdog]

imo yes sonar pinging in shallow water does spook and/or irritate some species like bass (I don't think pike spook as easily, because I seem to catch the majority of them within 10ft of the boat and often see them striking the lure)... How many watts is your unit?

 

As the other poster noted, we probably spook them much more by thumping around in the aluminum boat and chucking in the concrete anchor instead of letting it go slowly, outboard motor driving too close to where you are going to fish instead of drifting in... I was catching my fish directly beneath the boat yesterday (that's what drop shotting is)

 

I use the fish finder in less than 30ft of water as a bottom depth measuring tool and for checking for hard or soft weedy lake bottom. The beam is so narrow in 30ft of water that you essentially have to be directly over the fish to see the arch show on the screen. But I wish I had the money for a good side finder. I would find that more practical in shallow water under 30ft... Your cone size will vary greatly depending on what type transducer you're using, my 2400 watt Wide Optic uses a 3 beam transducer instead of the standard single or dual beam transducers... it has one beam looking straight down and one looking to the left and the other looking to the right, greatly increasing the cone size!... I'm running a Quad beam transducer on the 4000 watt 747C unit, a dual beam (wide and narrow) looking straight down and 2 beams to the side right and left.

 

 

I fished beside a guy on Nipissing who was dragging a lindy rig on bottom and his shaft length on the trolling motor was too short, thus his prop was splashing on the top of the surface, and he caught more pickerel than me in the same spot, while I was using the same set up (with proper shaft length). He does well too as he catches almost every outing. Go figure eh

 

Some sounds attract fish while others repel them!

 

 

I know some guys who shut off their graph when they're casting for muskies.... otherwise mine is always on, even jigging walleye in < 10'

 

.. again, how many watts is your unit?

 

 

I hear ya...I love my Lowrance but I fish pretty much in 20ft or less...which means I'm only seeing at most a 6ft circle of fish on the bottom.

 

... see my reply to Syn's quote.

 

 

It is my notion that the fish can hear the 4000 watt unit coming in shallow water and flee in front of it and off to the sides... I may be wrong, but I sure as hell don't think so!

Edited September 18, 2009 by GCD

[trapshooter]

I heard Marcum has gone belly up. Which would explain why their phone number doesn't work.

 

They were purchased by Versa Electronics from Minneapolis MN. Versa has been making the units for Markum for 3 years already.

[Rizzo]

I shut mine off whenever I can - ie casting a weedbed there's no point to have it on. Even if it doesn't scare the fish, they may be conditioned..."heard that pinging noise before, ate something, and then something very bad happened to me...not going to eat this time when I hear pinging"

[Syn]

GCD: You're using 2400-4000 watts My little 245ds is using 800-100watts at most. Its nice to have multi beam, that sure covers a lot of area compared to the 83hz cone I use. I still wish for a really good sidebeam. In 30ft of water I doubt my cone will show any more than a 10ft diameter "circle". I think I make much more noise than the fishfinder. Turning it off also saves the battery when I'm anchored.

 

 

I wish I could be fishing where you don't have to worry about noise and drop shot and catch bass in 20-30ft of water directly underneath you. Realistically though the places I go are pressured lakes and often the bass I catch have holes in their mouths from being caught before, generally neutral fish with a few very active ones this year). I like worming on the bottom for those neutral fish. I tried dropshotting before but I got bored easily, but I'll kep trying it. Dropshotting would be lethal if I found a group of bass hanging out. Probably at Gpool in 50ft.

 

I'm more into spinnerbaits so a fishfinder showing me directly underneath the boat is not very useful other than looking at depth and structure.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Syn

[Syn]

.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Syn

[Dozer]

Stop blaming the sonar for not catching any fish... sheesh... whats next, you weren't wearing the right shoes?

 

CLofchik, what happens when swimming under the boat with the sonar on?

[CLofchik]

CLofchik, what happens when swimming under the boat with the sonar on?

 

You can hear how loud it is.

[Dabluz]

When I'm fishing an area I already know, I don't use my sonar. When casting to shore, I don't use my sonar. When fly fishing, I don't use my sonar. When I'm slowly moving or drifting with a bottom bouncer, I do not use my sonar.

 

I guess the only time I use my sonar is when I'm trolling and I use it just to make sure that I'm trolling at the depth I want to troll or for scouting out new territory. Whether the unit indicates fish or not does not change anything because the fish could be just some sucker or catfish or maybe even a sportfish....but is it feeding or not?

 

Anyway, there were tests done with divers as to what a sonar really sees and the conclusion is that the sonar sometimes misses fish, sometimes does not see fish, sometimes adds more fish than there really are and often marks ordinary objects as fish.

 

Yes, fish most definately move away from boats....anyway....brook trout do. As a conservation officer in a territory where there are only brook trout, most of my work was to meet people while they were fishing....and take fishing statistics after looking over their permits etc. First off, we would look at them from far away using binoculars. We could see if they were catching fish or not and how many lines they had in the water. Often, the fishermen were not catching any fish or the fishing was slow. As we approached them in our outboard, almost every time, they would start catching fish. If there were 3 fishermen in the boat, everyone would have a fish at the end of their line. After a while, it was easy to figure out that our approaching boat pushed fish towards their anchored boat. We even did not mind intruding on the fishermen because we knew that our approach would improve their fishing for a few minutes.

 

When fishing.....silence is golden. I always catch more fish when alone.