Laurel Hill 7-07-2014
 

Put the kayak in this morning hoping to get some fish. As has been the pattern just catch one or two off of a bed...very scattered. Got probably my best snap shot of a Gill bed today but the bed only had 2 fish on it.....lots of houses but nobody home.....LOL. Caught 7 shell crackers and 7 Gills. The pics are of my best and worst for the 2 specie. The 9 inch Gills put up a real good fight and all the shell cracker fought good. Wouldn't have bothered me if I could have caught 7 inch shell cracker all day....but the 9 inch fish were really fun. Checked out a little bit of deep water today but all I could find were balls of shad. No fish feeding on them though. The large mouth were tearing it up in the weeds. Water temp was close to 85.

Regards

Nice SI shots. What were your settings?

Nice pics as usual. Are the blurs caused by your paddle stroke?

Must have been a new condo/apartment development, ready for occupancy but no tentants. :p

That last shot looks like a blue gill condo community.

For the not so fish finder savy, are the spots or indentions the blue gill? Was fish finder is this?

Thanks

Today the sensitivity was set to 10....contrast to 12...sharpness to low. I have learned that the condition of the water will dictate some adjusting...but on si I generally stay 10-12 on sensitivity.

Regards

You can see the paddle stroke near the center lines...that is not the cause of the blurs. These units work off the Doppler shift principal....meaning something has to be moving. In the case of the sonar the boat has to be moving and preferably in a straight line. If you turn...even though it might only be slight....you can create a zero Doppler shift.....or start going into zero Doppler. Meaning you are now technically not moving away from, or closer to the object because you are in a slight turn and you don't get much Doppler shift to give you a clear picture. Being in a kayak it is easy to shift a little one way or the other with the paddle stroke....but to me it works great. While I am no sonar expert I was in the missile business for 38 years and my main area of expertise was continuos wave Doppler tracking radars. The principal is the same. Sonar just uses sound waves versus radiated frequency. These units have to be moving for them to work correctly. But once you use one of these and know what you are looking at even though the wind is just pushing you along at a very slight speed you can see fish...beds...trees....even though they are blurred and distorted you know what you are looking at....but still it is best to be moving at one MPH or better for good results. I keep my scroll speed at 2 as that is my MPH reading while paddling...most of the time. Next spring is going to be an epic year for me for catching shell cracker....Gills.....God willing. I have lost count of the beds I have marked and the best ones are those in that 5-8 foot depth range. Not easy to see those with the naked eye like a bed in 3 feet of water.


Regards

The unit is the Humminbird 899 ci HD SI. Merv has one....plus a better unit....and TK has a bigger unit also....as I assume others on here have side imaging as well. The indentations are bluegill beds. If there was a Gill in the center of the bed it would show a a bright dot.


Regards

Can you imagine the number and size of Gills that will be in that come next spring! I got to some of these beds in spring and many of them hold shell cracker...life is good!


Regards

If I fished for bluegills, I'd be following you every time you left your house next spring!

I haven't posted much lately but I always enjoy your pics. And that last pic does look like a crappie gill hybrid. Thanks

Welcome anytime Merv. I'll tell you one thing this unit has taught me. All the articles I have read over the years....some saying that Gills spawn on every full moon throughout the summer......that's just not true. This unit has shown me so far that after that first big spawn there are not that many Gills return to the bed after that is over....only a few spawned on 12 June and I checked out dozens of beds a few days before..during..and after full moon. I have burned a lot of gas checking the beds at Center Hill and Laurel Hill and so far the big spawn in the spring is the only time I have seen them full of fish. But.....we have another full moon on July 12th and August 10th. I will be burning up the roads just to see if they fill those beds up again. As you know these units don't lie.


Regards

Thanks Cornbread. I have seen Gills cross with shell crackers but never seen crappie crossed with either. Those pics are two shell cracker and two Gills....but I guess it is possible for the two to cross.


Regards

Haven't been able to check the forum in a while, trying to get caught up...love the way you're learning your electronics and putting them to use.