October-first week of Nov
 

My son's racing schedule has continued so my time on the water has been more limited. He races in the state championship meet with his team this Saturday, then it should be game on for me.

Anyhow, Over the last month most the trips we did make were jigging and plugging. With fish schooled up and mostly feeding on silversides jigging has been about the most productive option in the upper bay. Most our trips have been above the bridge. We did do one trip south of the bridge trolling big baits off boards for a few hours looking for migrants but we ended having to jig for action.

The use of my new high power stabilizing binoculars have been my best tool. I can spot birds 5 miles or so away. We havent found any over 30" fish in a bit. However most trips are yielding fish to the 25-27". We did have a trip where we could only find dinks but most trips are yielding keepers. One 2.5hr solo trip was very good with only one short fish out of more than a dozen caught.

Trick for us on most trips has been to fish outside the working birds under the big birds sitting on the water and keeping the jigs right on the bottom. Best lure seem to have been 1oz lil bunkers by specialized baits. They have out-fished plastics most trips.

Greg; I know you are busy, but could you take the time to explain the two photo's of your fish finder?

I know on another site you said the one showed stripers feeding on silversides. But what I want to know is, 1) How come two screens? Is one screen set on 200 while the other is on 50? Or, is one screen set to normal view while the other is set on magnified view? 2) Why does only the screen on the right show "whats coming" under the boat? You know what I mean, the far right image where the images are formed. How come the screen on the left doesn't have this?

I'll even squeeze in a third question, can you take a photo of the Lil Bunker.
Thanks,
5th

Marty i think the answer to your question about fish finder can be explained by looking in the top left corner of the screen. If I'm not mistaken the left hand side "HF" is in high frequecey mode while the screen on right "LF" is a view in low frequecey. Looking at the two different views of same school being eaten it kinda makes sense with more detail in high frequency mode. I very well could be wrong and if so I hope Greg corrects me.

Marty, when in waters less than 50' I run my fishfinder in dual frequency mode. My machine runs a low frequency (LF) 50kHz on the left and high frequency (HF) 200kHz on the right. The transducer I run is an Airmar p66 600w transducer (very common for inshore people). The "cone" of the signal with this transducer for 50kHz is very wide. It is 45 degrees. The cone for the 200kHz is narrow at 10 degrees. http://www.airmartechnology.com/uplo...chures/p66.pdf

http://www.raymarine.com/uploadedIma...les_300(1).gif

Most people typically have been told to use 200kHz for inshore because it is more sensitive and 50kHz for offshore since a low frequency will travel deeper into the water, though "less sensitive" due to typically wider cone angles. Before digital processing fishfinders like today, you often got a lot of noise or clutter with low frequencies like the 50kHz in shallower waters. That is NOT the case today with digital fishfinders since the processing filters out a lot of the noise/clutter.

Because fishfinders are so good today, I recommend knowing the strength and weakness of each frequency and running both side by side even in the bay. I personally think this is better than going with a new CHIRP unit unless you are bottom fishing in deep water. (I wont get into the CHIRP differences here).

Now given my transducer, like most, offers a wider cone at 50kHz, I am able to gain these advantage by reading this frequency.
1. I cover more water under the boat with the wider cone.
2. I get more of a defined "arch" for bigger fish than smaller fish and this allows me to better differentiate between game and bait. This makes it great for suspended fish.

"Arches" are formed as a fish's swim bladder passes through the cone of the transducer frequency like this:
http://65.38.22.198/Lowrance/Images/fish%20arch.gif
This is why you dont see as big of arch on the 200kHz side because the cone is either missing some fish and/or the fish is in the cone for less time.

The 200kHz narrow cone gives me these advantages:
1. narrower, more targeted view of the bottom since the signal is concentrated on a smaller area of the bottom. Because of this it more likely to pick up fish right on the bottom for bottom fishing
2. the narrower more sensitive cone shows bottom density changes (harder to softer bottom - hard bottom is a thinner line, soft bottom is a wider line)
3. the narrow beam is more likely to pick up water breaks like thermoclines. Sometimes i need to turn up the gain on that side to find them in the spring and fall. (increasing gain likely fills in targets for less discrimination though)

All the way to the right on my screen is a flasher. That just gives me the instant returns vs seeing what we have already passed over as the marks scroll to the left.

Here is a labeled screen shot from the screen from last May to kind of put it all together for you:
http://www.thehulltruth.com/members/...cture81660.jpg

When I troll deeper water in the spring and fall, I usually use the 50kHz and split the screen to read the full top to bottom on one side and just the top 40' of water on the other. I dont care as much about bottom density changes when trolling so the narrow cone of the 200kHz doesnt have much benefit other than to know about where the thermocline is to run some baits along it. In the summer when I am looking for spot or areas to chunk on bottom changes, I use the 200kHz a lot more and will even do bottom zoom with white line features.

The squiggly lines above were just us drifting with the fish staying under the boat for an extended period of time.

Clear as mud. We need to fish together we can talk more about it :D

Oh yeah. Here are the Lil' Bunkers by Specialized Baits. Most tackle shops have them. I get mine at AllTackle in Annapolis

http://www.tacklecove.com/images/Li-l-Bunker-35.jpg

They are just metal jigs that flutter nice when jigging. We find we catch bigger fish than on metal jigs like sting silvers with them. All our keepers last Saturday came on them.

Thanks Greg; I knew you would give a detailed description. Most of the lowrance units (with standard transducers) come with the 83/200 transducer. Mine has 50/200. I was told, as you mentioned, to use the 200 setting. If I learned nothing else from your response, it is that I need to run my FF showing both 50/200 so I can evaluate the "complete" picture.
Thanks for the response and the photo of the lil bunker.

Yes, we do need to fish together:D
5th

If you have the lowrance with the 50/200kHz you may have the same transducer as I do. I think the lowrance transducer is the 83/200kHz. When you pull your boat, send me a photo of your transducer.

I think it is definitely worth while to run in split screen with dual frequency. Given that most our fishing is for suspended striped bass, I think the 50kHz is more useful most of the time. Of course I am not sure that Lowrance's digital processing is as good as Furuno's :p:D (kidding of course, Ford-Chevy thing)

I can guarantee you that my transducer is not the airman:eek: While most lowrance ducers are 83/200 their is an option to purchase 50/200.

I also believe the standard lowrance transducer is not as capable as aftermarket transducers (like airman). If they were, no one would pay extra for the airman.

That being said, even my standard transducer has different capabilities in each mode. I'm going to have to evaluate those differences by running side by side.

Truth be told; I don't even run my lowrance 50/200 transducer. I have become so dependent on the down scan/side scan; that this is all I have been using on my screen. I normally split my screen 3 ways. (Gps mapping, sidescan, downscan).

I'll have to play with the screen while guys like Mako Mike catch fish for me:eek:
5th

I'm not sure if the Lowrance unit can show both frequencies at the same time. I was playing with it Saturday waiting for the tide to turn.

Greg- do you have to change the gain between the two? While using the 200, I only had the gain around 55%. When I switched to 83, I didn't mark anything. When I turned the gain up to around 70% I began to get clutter and bait.

Holy crap...... That so was informative if took me part of last night and again this morning to read through it!
Glad I'm just lucky!

I tried to search what the cone angles are on the Lowrance transducers. This is what I found on the Lowrance site: http://support.lowrance.com/system/s...RTICLE_ID=2969

I also found this: http://www.chsmith.com.au/Products/L...ansducers.html
Looks like the shallow water 200/83 has a wide cone at both frequencies (probably not the best for bottom fishing since the cone is so wide at 200kHz) and the deep water 200/50 is closer to the p66 but only has a 35 degree cone at 50kHz.

Here is a discussion between the p66 and Lowrance transducers:http://www.thehulltruth.com/marine-e...hds-5-a.html#b

Note that the p66 is a cheap Airmar transducer at less than $100. I think it is better for fishing the bay than the more expensive high power 1kw transducers because you get a very wide cone at 50kHz. My fish finder is a full 1kw capable unit and I would stick with the p66/b60 even if I was given a higher power 1kw transducer.

Here is a chart that shows how much area a given cone angle covers at a particular depth
http://www.crappie.com/crappie/attac...-footprint-jpg

Furuno is really good in auto mode with their "advanced DSP (digital signal processing)" . My unit has two functions, fishing and cruising. I use mine in fishing and usually don't have to touch the gain on the 50kHz side. I turn the gain to +2 (from auto) on the 200kHz side sometimes to pick up the thermoclines. This gives me a little less target discrimination in a bait ball but it shows me where to run my umbrellas for big fish in the spring. If I get too much noise on the 50kHz side, I may turn down the gain to -2 to clear the screen from unwanted returns some. I rarely turn up the low frequency side.

This is the unit I have: http://www.furuno.com/en/products/chartplotter/GP-1870F
It uses the same technology as the Furuno FCV587 and DDF1 which have won many awards for fishfinders. I went with this unit because it was about the same price as the FCV587 at the time I bought it and because it gave me a back-up GPS. They are dirt cheap right now since Furuno dropped the prices and is now offering a $200 rebate on the units. I think with a p66 they come in at $650 after the rebate right now. (if you want to use as a GPS too, charts cost another $195). Furuno is likely to release a newer version of their fishfinders this winter that includes their newer feature called "rezboost" on their non CHIRP fishfinders. It is already found in their Time Zero Touch 2 units. New stand alone fishfinder will be called the FCV588.

Even if you are an offshore person the unit I have is a great unit since it is a full 1kw capable with the right transducer. It also offers a couple of technology features that are pretty cool. First is bottom discrimination. This gives you probability of what the bottom is made of (sand, rock, gravel, mud) and a great tool for bottom fisherman. The other is Accufish. It is a technology that supposedly tells you the size of the fish by measuring the air bladders between the two frequencies. I dont use it because I rather see the arches myself.

Downside to my unit is that its a widescreen format and not that tall. Some dont like it for deeper water and seeing the water column. However I find that the widescreen splits nicely and I use the splits to my advantage with zooms if necessary..

All other brands are touting single channel CHIRP units right now. CHIRP is when a fishfinder sends out a range of frequencies at once instead of a fixed frequency like we have been discussing. IMHO the single channel CHIRP units havent overly impressed me compared to the Furuno units. I think it is more marketing hype than anything. Furuno does offer CHIRP but it is a true CHIRP unit that is very expensive and requires very expensive transducers. From talking to a Furuno rep, it would be completely over kill for the shallower waters of the bay.

Here are some other fishfinder shots I have:

http://www.thehulltruth.com/members/...cture81664.jpg
http://www.thehulltruth.com/members/...cture81663.jpg
http://www.thehulltruth.com/members/...cture81662.jpg
http://www.thehulltruth.com/members/...cture81661.jpg

Thanks for the excellent pics of the sounder, Greg. Can you post some detailed pics of the GPS, so I can see where you are finding these fish?

Saturday, while using 200, I was finding good marks of fish and bait, but when I switched to 83, everything disappeared. I tried turning up the gain, but only got a lot of clutter. It might have been bait fish, but no solid fish arches. What is shown in the first pic on the right, is what I interpret as fish. I am anxious to get back out and mess around with the settings again. Thanks for the detailed info.

Tell your son, Good Luck this weekend. I'm sure he'll do well. I guess I won't be seeing you guys on Saturday as usual.

Mark, my plan is to fish Sunday afternoon with a trolling spread and big baits. With tournaments coming up I need to do some scouting. I doubt you are fishing Saturday too unless you want to get beat up. (NW winds 15 to 20 kt with gusts to 25 kt. Waves 3 ft.)

With the 83/200 transducer I would be more apt to use the 200kHz since the cone is so wide on both the 200 and 83 side. The cone maybe too wide to be sensitive enough to pick up baitfish, especially silversides at 83kHz (60 degree cone). Fiddling with it to know what you are dealing with is probably the best solution.

The boy is just a sophomore but he made varsity (5th man) so he gets to go to states because the team made it. This year a fire has been lit under his butt a little so look out next year and his senior year.

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...20&oe=56C4A966

Furuno just put out a page on using fishfinders

http://furunostyle.jp/en/

http://www.furuno.com/special/en/fishfinder/

:)