All,

Please take a look at these graph pics. Tell me what I am doing wrong.

I fished Monday morning for a few hours, before weather changed. Graph looked good. But could not buy a bite. Had fresh cut and whole shad, cut drum and chicken.
Drifting about .6-.7 to start, put out another sock and slowed down to .3 to .5, and using same rigs I have done well with. Bouncing it off their heads... lol.

Know it is not as clear as side image, but know a lot of you have years of experience which i appreciate you sharing knowledge.

Would you drift - fish this? What am I looking at here?

Thanks!
Ken

#1 thing I would do first is change your color palette on your graph so that your hard returns are red and soft returns are green Ken. Yours is set to red and yellow. Setting your graph to that green and red will help you to ID catfish much much much better as the bone in the head will return red while the soft body is green. Scaled fish don’t have a soft body so the return is red throughout.

#2 It’s hard to tell what your looking at when your boat is sitting still or drifting at .5 Ken. The boat needs to be moving 3-5 mph and your chart speed should match your boat speed to get an accurate representation of fish size. When drifting i adjust the chart speed to 1 and it will give you a better representation of fish size as you go over them but they will still look stretched out on the graph.

#3 Those look like sandbass to me but I gotta have a combo of 2d with side image to know for sure at what I’m looking at. There are usually blues with the sandbass starting around now so when I find an area full of sandbass I fish it.

#4 Time to get Side Image Sonar for as much as you fish amigo! I rarely mark good fish on 2d sonar unless I’m out deep. Bigger cats tend to know the boat is moving over them and get pushed out to the side before you can mark em. Side image really is the most incredible fish finding tool once you learn how to use it. You’ll wonder how you ever found fish before it.

#5 Be a good boy this year and be extra nice to Momma and maybe you can convince her to let you get another big boy toy for your B-day or Christmas.

Or do like me and tell Momma what the boat wants the boat gets...

Chris,

Thank you as always! Still have that bottle of whiskey for you!

I did not know about the bone and soft body, but that makes sense. Will do it. Speed also makes sense. Just more to learn.

I have a Lowrance Elite TI 9" unit with down and side... was using it to chart, following a creek bed. I really need to learn to use the side imaging better. Need to learn how to adjust it to get a clear picture first, and then use it more. I have started using it a little more while crappie fishing, just need to put in the time with it.

There was definitely shad and sandbass down there, net proved it. But just could not believe there was not any cats with that much bait. Stuff was bunched up pretty tight when I found it...

I am going to come up and see you before it gets too hot out!

thanks again
Ken

Come on up Ken and me and Action Jaxon will try and put y’all on some fish. Your welcome on my boat anytime Amigo

This is good information right here! Gives me something to try this weekend and see if i can tell a difference.

Just to add on, there are times, that even if you bounce the bait on their head, they just don't bite. Last weekend the bite was on when I got started, it was full on, and stayed going for a couple hours. Then, it just shut off. Couldn't buy a bite. Switched over to hybrid fishing and tore them up.

Ain’t that the truth Z. One thing I learned when I used fish with high level guides is all the top guides I fished with put a clock on the bite. If the fish quit biting then move and keep moving until you find another group. Tom used to put a Marlboro timer on after about 30 minutes of no bites and if we didn’t have a fish hooked up by the end of that Marlboro, we moved. I incorporated the timer (not the Marlboros, I quit smoking cigarettes 10 yrs ago) into my game and it’s really helped me to not waste a lot of time sitting on fish that won’t bite.

One last thing Z. When those hybrids show up there are very often groups of larger Blues with them. This could be a pod of (20) ten pound Blues or 8 pack of Teeners. Sometimes it’s 3 or 4 20s or 1-2 toads with em. I’ve found that there is a way to greatly increase your chance of catching these bigger fish that are tagging along with the hybrids but to get that kind of tip your gonna have to PM me.