That’s very cool. Been enjoying the new navionics card I got for Christmas. Marking lots of water.

"Seldom do I get to see them stacked up like this and then actually catch them. Of course I never had images like this until I added the Active Imaging 3-1 to the Carbons".

Beats the hell outta my Gen 2 little white dot images.

Years ago I had a Humminbird 798 on my old Nitro. We ran across a bait ball and there were fish all over it. Turned around and caught 4 in 5 casts with a 5XD, that was cool. The next day for our company tournament the wind was blowing to hard to fish that area. More graphing in my future.

when I was a kid we found an abandoned swimming pool 3/4 full with algae growing in it. we went and caught everything possible and stocked it. All kinds of fish, turtles, baitfish, crawdads, snails you name it. we fished it for a summer, still cant believe it lasted that long. when we would catch and release a bass, it would swim to the very bottom and sit on the drain. all the other bass would come investigate and wouldn't bite for hours. not so sure about a chemical, highly doubt it, but I think they were curious to the caught fishes abnormal behavior. predatory instinct maybe. I dunno...

It was on a Bill Dance fishing show a long time ago , it was his " theory " that bass secreted a chemical after after being caught that causes the others to shutdown . I have no other proof , but I have a similar experience ( without the nice pics like Steez ) where I found a pile of bass stacked up and started getting them real good ---- then all of a sudden they stopped biting . They were still there , just stopped biting .
I tried other lures , no more bites --- left the spot for a couple of hours --- came back and caught a few more .
There has to be a reason why they stop biting after they are released .

If they shut down, be sure and throw something different at them. Maybe the chemical secretion is very specific (e.g. hey boys, avoid the rattling crawfish with the dang sharp tentacles), but I have seen schools where you had to throw something different in there like switching from a big fluke on a CRig to a small centipede type bait and you pick up a few more.

You answered my question before I got to ask it! Why do you think those fish were there? That whole scenario just blows the whole concept of structure fishing literally out of the water. I know that in nature, there really is nothing etched in stone.. but other than the slight hump.. ain't nature fun!
BD

It certainly gives me a new outloook on graphing, things to look for, and expectations. It also makes me question the actions of the fish. Looking at the graph, when they first showed up, it seemed that they were positioned towards the boat. Maybe curiosity, maybe just me over thinking. But...it seemed they were looking at the boat.

These new technologies are a gift though, that’s for sure. I am positive that I would never see fish like that with the standard transducers. For sure.

One person mentioned that they wouldn’t know how to relate the fish to a location in which to throw? On the Lowrance graphs, I can simply move the cursor over the target area, zoom in, the press “waypoint”. It sets a waypoint on top of the target area. Then, switch to split screen with the map on one side and, with a Point 1 antenna, i know exactly where the target is in relation to the boats current position and direction. That’s the easy part.

Another thing I ALWAYS DO, especially when tournament fishing, is I waypoint every catch. Then, after a few catches (hopefully early and quick), I will look at the map. The map will have markers on it for each catch, it’s location, and depth. This will help to realize at least a depth/structure pattern. Maybe they have all been downwind of a point in 8-10ft....whatever. That action alone will help zero in on the fish and eliminate water faster than just poking around at stuff.

Thanks for all the comments folks.

This is something I have been considering doing. When you catch a fish, do you mark where your boat is sitting, or approximately where you hooked the fish away from the boat?

Where the fish bit.

I've heard or read the same thing about released bass shutting down the bite. Not sure how true this is but something about pheromones. I guess if you believe that one good bite can "fire up" a school of bass and trigger a feeding frenzy then why wouldn't the opposite be true and possibly shut down a good bite? I'm just now starting to get back to fishing more, hopefully I can stumble across a good school of bass and see what happens!

Excellent post OP by the way, thats very cool to see. I need to upgrade my electronics and a lot of other things for that matter... just started upgrading/updating rods, reels, tackle, etc I'm excited to learn and try out the techniques that have been coming along over the last few years!

Awesome post. Thanks for sharing.

Thats really cool. Nice fish.

Stressed fish do in fact release a chemical that communicates with other fish. See the study in the link which is full of scientific jargon but if you will scroll down to section 4 Discussion, the conclusion is that “handled fish release a substance that induces a stress response in recipient fish.” I think I recall reading about this long ago in some of Doug Hannon’s articles in BassMaster Magazine.

The final paragraph Reads: The present results have practical implications for fish culture. Release of chemical stress factors should be considered when handling fish in a recirculating system. In addition, consequences for catch-and-release practices cannot be ignored, as hooked fish may release chemicals that stress conspecific fish, thereby spreading the damage to many more fish.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.03.009