From: plheron@ecemw6.ncsu.edu (Pat L. Heron)
Subject: SONAR, was: Fish-finders.
Organization: North Carolina State University
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 14:59:39 GMT

In article <56420006@hpscit.sc.hp.com>, spikes@hpscit.sc.hp.com (Bill Spikes) writes:
|> 
|> 
|> Ok, back into the foray. I'm learning a lot through the discussions going
|> on here. Thanks to all. Some have asked why I need all this technology
|> (toys) to catch a fish. Well, I'll admit, when in Iowa or Minnisota or
|> Canada, I don't need a sonar to help catch fish, turtles, weeds, rocks,
|> or my hat. In CA, near the S.F. Bay area, there a herds of fisherpersons,
|> very few freshwater areas, and there has been a drought around here for the
|> past 5 years! The powers that be haven't yet learned to control water
|> supplies, so instead of planting 7 lb fish for me, they drain the reservoirs 
|> dry and suck the delta area down to grow rice and cotton in the desert! My
|> fish lobby hasn't got the power and money that the farm lobbies have.
|> 
|> I get to go fishing VERY few times a year. To those who benefit from my
|> buying a license and stamps for my limited time using them, you're
|> welcome! :-) No way can I 'learn' a lake or fishing area like those fisher-
|> persons that get to go 10 or more times a year to the same spot, year after
|> year. 
I guess that I should warn you that I am about to spout a bunch 
of B.S. opinion regarding BASS fishing, get out now while you can!!!

In my opinion, WITHOUT a sonar you cannot really learn a lake 
anyway.  Fishing would not be fishing to me if I put on some 
live (or dead) bait and motored to a spot that I know I can 
catch fish, then drop anchor and dunk the bait.  In this 
regeme I'd be catching fish at a place that I knew was productive, 
but I wouldn't know why the location was good (what about this 
place attracts and holds active gamefish?), I wouldn't learn anything.  
Besides, other than knowing the location, little or no skill is required 
to dunk some bait (I'll include power-bait in this category, just the 
same a a dead night-crawler but much more expensive.  My God, 
if a rod-holder is smart enough to catch fish with bait, how 
can I feel satisfaction from catching fish with it?, I will agree 
that this is not the case for catfish,stripers,walleye.)

With my sonar (I will not call them fish-finders, because in 
shallow water (i.e. not fishing for open water species) only 
people who do not know how to use them look for fish))
I can see the bottom structure.  When I stumble onto some active 
fish and catch a few, I can study the area, 
then come up with some theories as 
to why the fish are at this particular location.  Based upon 
these theories I can also come up with a selection of possible 
lures and techniques to catch more of these fish.  If I know the 
lake (and based upon these theories) I can try known alternate 
locations that have some of the same properties as the productive 
area.  Once a pattern emerges I can work on sub-patterns or 
alternate patterns.  I can study how these patterns shift with 
seasons over the 12 months of the year, and how they are different 
from lake to lake.  Fishing is an active learning experience. 
I would much rather have 50 bass swimming in the lake with my 
fresh hook-marks in their mouths, than 5 dead gut hooked bass 
in a meat bucket caught BY (not ON) "minners" or nightcrawlers. 

So, no, I don't need a sonar to catch bass, but without one 
I wouldn't want to.  I will admit though, that in the spring 
I will revert to mindlessly beating the banks for bass... 
Precision casting to visable structure is fun (but with 
my sonar I can still determine that a particular bank was 
good because the channel looped within 30ft of shore)...


|> I love to just sit there, using the stealth approach, with a bobber or
|> dredging the bottom with dead worms too. 
Not me!

|> Guess who(m) out on the water gets at least a few fish? The guys that have
|> the time to sit in the same spots week after week, 
They are related to the "walking dead", the "fishing dead,"

|> sonar fishfinder! 
         XXXXXXXXXXX
Around here everyone has a sonar, few are good (routinely 
sucessful) anglers.  People who don't have them think that 
they are magical boxes that you bolt onto you boat, then 
catch obscene numbers of fish.  A sonar is a tool that 
can be used by a smart/experienced person to fish in water 
that has a higher than average liklyhood of holding active 
fish.  In another 5 years I hope to be one of those guys.


|> out quite a bit in the salty stuff around the Pacific rim. It's not
|> like I don't know where to look, dive after dive. Freshwater fishing is
|> more challenging to me after all the diving. 
Hey, I'll come visit you, let's go saltwater fishing!

|> any suggestions (funny, serious, flammable) as to the best way to improve
|> time available vs fish caught that are better than trying a pinger toy?
Nope, a great idea, use your brain.  You still have to pay your 
dues though.  I try to fish one day a week in the winter, and 
two days a week the rest of the year (I've been slipping a bit 
lately though).

|> This is my (too long) response to those of you that tell me I shouldn't
|> need this toy. Are your waters as crowded, overfished, and mismanaged
|> as ours are here? 
Yeah, buy you do have those famous GIANT California bass!!!


			-Pat.



			
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