Was listening to Zaldain on BTL this morning and he talked about how he thinks that
somehow the bass will continue to adapt to fishing pressure and now the pressure
being brought by forward scanning sonar......Question?

I think general consensus is that highly pressured shallow fish react negatively to sonar pings.
With the growing amount of sonar pings hitting the deeper and suspended bass more regularly
now, at what point does sonar on a heavily pressured lake become a bass catching hindrance
vs. help? Just the bigger more "intelligent" bass or all bass?

Thoughts?

There was a video on You Tube I just tried to find that the owner of Hydrowave made about common fishing noise in a bass boat. It brings to light just how loud things are under water. He made the video with an under water sound recording device fastened to his hull. Water carries sound way better than air; I didn't know that until I watched his video. That being said, I could see these pings becoming a signal to bass to be cautious. Could we high tech ourselves into making bass fishing a lot harder? Time will definitely tell..................

Since mounting my Garmin UHD I have learned allot more about the fish than they have learned about me!

I don’t know, It’s not like our trolling motor props, shiny stainless steel props and great big boats floating in the water didn’t already give us away. A fish isn’t the most intelligent species in the world, but they are definitely smarter than me!

The question to me is whether the new tech will reduce the number of catchable fish.

Most fishermen had no clue how to fish deep, then sonar hit the market.
Then digital drew them a better picture. GPS so triangulation was not needed and was more accurate. Then side scan and now 360 showing fish all around the boat in real time.

It can't be good for the numbers.

I can't listen to that show since Jefferies left, the kid is smart but he doesn't have a voice for radio or running a podcast.

Live scope has hurt the crappie population around here. They haven’t moved or became skiddish, can still find schools but the amount of keeper fish just don’t exist anymore.

My theory is that many of the offshore fish being caught would have never been caught if not for the new technology. Just like the Current State Record bass caught in 42' of water by a crappie fisherman. I believe there has always been a large population of fish that never come shallow even to spawn. I think the state record was one of them.

When was the last time you fished on the bottom for bass in 42 feet of water in Lake Fork. I'll be honest and say I never have.

I've caught spotted bass on Table Rock in 105' but they were suspended 40 feet down and they weren't 18 pounds!

Ken, I agree 100% that this offshore population of fish were very rarely targeted by 99% of bass fisherman.
A few of the old timers on SR/TB were very good at this but kept very quiet about it.
Most of those guys are gone now. These fish got very little pressure and were very aggressive.

The deepest bass I ever caught was on the bottom in 43' at Fork. One
January when water temp was in the 40s and not much grass. The bass will get out on those deep
community holes (SRA point/ Little Caney points,etc). You will catch bass, crappie, white
bass and yellow bass all mixed together. Just look for the bait. I've fished over
much deeper water before (Amistad, Table Rock, Travis), but the fish
were suspended.

Not unusual to catch fish off ledges from 25 to 60' on Amistad.. Have caught some as deep as 100 at the bottom of a ledge. Hard to tell it's even a fish that deep. Plus it will blow their air bladder out of their mouth, so I won't do it anymore.

My past couple of years of being back at this game, the first year and 10 months fishing out of a jon boat with nothing more than a depth finder and a trolling motor; my observation, it may not be the pings but rather the amount of stealth we give up with these big bass rigs. I fished Fork and Holbrook out of my jon boat running the fishfinder the whole time I was on the water to monitor my battery but I noticed the number of fish I was seeing was huge compared to what I remembered seeing when I was fishing out of a bass boat decades ago. It would be interesting to take that boat out and record what I see with the jon boat and have someone in a full blown tournament rig following me to see what they record at a distance. As I have said before my dad was always big on stealth and the more I fish the more I believe he was right.

Muskie fisherman started to unlock these offshore fish a few decades ago. We call them "the fleet," and we know know that the largest fish often never come shallow, even to spawn. They spawn in much deeper water than previously thought. Smallies too. I think in many of these reservoirs, bass do the same, and scopes just prove this out. But deep water doesn't mean the fish themselves are deep, and while fish still relate to structure, they often suspend above the structure. Many times less than 10'-15' regardless of water depth. Buck Perry said decades ago: Deep water is the home of the largest fish." He was right then, and he's right now still.