When I see brush on my downscan I toss the marker float out immediately. I've noticed that my marker comes to rest anywhere from 10-20ft from the actual brush. It takes a few minutes of fishing near the marker to determine EXACTLY where the brush is. Is there a delay from the time the boat passes over the brush and the time I see it on the graph? Using Lowrance Elite 9 TI. I drive from the back of the boat and the transducer is about 2ft right behind me.

I've also come to realize I need to add more weight to my floats so they will unroll more quickly, especially when it's windy.

Anybody have any tips?

Add more weight to the marker and it will sink quicker. I usually drop mine 10' past the brushpile and into the wind so it will float right up to the edge of the pile by the time it sinks. Then park your boat on the down wind side and fish between the marker and the boat. All depends on how windy it is that day. When I was fishing consistently 3-4 times a week I could mark them extremely accurate.

Nice insight....

Something else you can try is to roll the metal band on the float into a roll. It will drop alot quicker and wont swim around. I always approach piles into the wind, and expect to actually throw a second buoy if needed when I come back around on the trolling motor. Stretch pretty much nailed it

I always throw my marker on the upwind side of the structure that way i'm not fighting try'n to keep it out of my TM.....
I also always have two or more at the ready so I can dial in on where the fish are hitting.....

If you don't roll the weight up into a ball like mentioned make sure its straight. Most are wound around the marker and guys get lazy about straighten them out. I replaced the factory ones with duck decoy weights that are heavier and slimmer and make sure they are streamlined. A crooked weight will deflect while sinking.

Thank you all for the tips.

You need to throw it as soon as it starts to appear on your screen. If your throwing it when you see the full brush pile your well past it.

I don't use a buoy often because of the Xi5. But if I do and before I had a Xi5, I used the 2D scope, not DI. The amplitude on the right of the screen is real time and as soon as I saw the BP, I knew where it was and threw the buoy as stated above.

If I have a waypoint in deep water with no obstructions I'll head the boat at the way point using my trolling motor and looking with
my traditional 2D, as soon as the brush pile begins to show I know its still in front of the trolling motor, once the brush pile shows its
highest point the trolling motor is directly over the brush pile. Continuing over the brush pile as soon as I see the beginning of the brush pile on my rear Fishfinder,
I lay the buoy in the water next to the boat...meaning the brush pile is now between the front Fishfinder and the aft Fishfinder...with a buoy in the middle.
At the same time I'm watching my side imaging which will tell you if you are left-right- or centered over the pile.
Now I have determined the front-back, and left-right-center of the pile. Now I circle back using my buoy as a guide and slowly locate the pile with my front Fishfinder and hit spotlock with the front of the boat right on top of the pile...If the buoy is too close, I'll throw another buoy directly to my right about 15 feet.
and pick up the first one...this gives me room to move the boat around the pile without hitting the buoy...sounds complicated but takes me 5 minutes...
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The best thing I�ve found to use on my buoy marker is a plumb Bob. It goes straight down where you drop the marker. I wish I had the electronics mentioned by others on this thread. Maybe someday but retirement has drastically reduced my spending.

I added an additional weight to one of my markers yesterday. When I threw it out it the float never came back up.

Line tangled???

That�s a great hack! Thanks for sharing that tip.

note to self get plump bob...Thanks Coach!!!!

I only use the marker buoy to mark boat position.
I throw it upwind from the pile or structure and keep the boat X number of feet from the pile or whatever.