How do you FIND them?

[genEus]

Spent 12 hours between yesterday and today fishing and could not find fish, out of Bear Creek. We ended up with a 14.2lb laker the first day and a couple smaller lakers today, but obviously that served to make us feel only slightly less upset about not getting into any kings. It's ok, still learning, I guess. Anyways, both days our screen was empty I'd say 95% of the time, except for maybe when we hit 100'-90' FOW and were definitely marking some fish hugging the bottom, bait balls, etc, etc. 

 

Seeing and hearing people on the radio say "great screen," or "marking them," or whatever else - how do people get to those "spots," so to speak? We were brave enough to go hit about 400FOW today, and spent about half an hour going in increments of 20-30 feet of depth, slowing down to look for a minute, and going somewhere else to do the same, in search mode, before we gave up, set our lines down out around 390FOW and trolled in south east direction towards the shore...

 

Right now I'd be glad to be at the point where I see fish but fail to catch them, so that I can think about other things like lure, presentation, and technique... But without even seeing them, that's tough.

 

Thoughts?

 

[insufishent]

we fished out of hughes this morning went out to 200 fow set up on a north troll and picked up a king in 230 ish fow fished out to 300 fow on a blank screen so we worked back south to 120 fow where we started picking a mixed bag of lakers and  kings all the way to ginna where it turned to all lakers pretty much on a blank screen they are starting to stage in that 120-150 range

[Frogger]

Are you marking your cannonballs down 100+ ft?

[genEus]

Are you marking your cannonballs down 100+ ft?

Negative. I am using some inherited electric Big Jon's and weights, both that came with the boat and get quite a bit of blowback unfortunately, as I think they're 8 or 10lbs, which leaves me between guessing, eyeballing the cable angle and using trig to guesstimate the actual depth, or hitting the bottom and raising the balls, to get an idea how deep they're running. Also had a mag dipsy out about 250 and a regular out 350' both on a 3 setting

Sent from my HTCONE using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[Frogger]

Well here's something to try not to say its going to catch you more fish but it would make you feel better about seeing them as said earlier. Not sure what unit you use or trans degree it is. Unless your ducker is kicked at a wrong angle, or a thruhull, you should be seeing the balls when your sending them down. At least at a stopped positIon. Try turning the sensitivity up, or surface clarity down etc to get more of a better picture. As I said there's a ton of stuff you can try but these are just some starts. I'm surprised you didn't mark much with that much travel today. Others I'm sure on here will be a huge help. This is an awesome site for this kinda of help

[Frogger]

Well here's something to try not to say its going to catch you more fish but it would make you feel better about seeing them as said earlier. Not sure what unit you use or trans degree it is. Unless your ducker is kicked at a wrong angle, or a thruhull, you should be seeing the balls when your sending them down. At least at a stopped positIon. Try turning the sensitivity up, or surface clarity down etc to get more of a better picture. As I said there's a ton of stuff you can try but these are just some starts. I'm surprised you didn't mark much with that much travel today. Others I'm sure on here will be a huge help. This is an awesome site for this kinda of help

heres my screen shot today. I do run mine high sensitivity so that's why the interference is a little high.

[genEus]

Well here's something to try not to say its going to catch you more fish but it would make you feel better about seeing them as said earlier. Not sure what unit you use or trans degree it is. Unless your ducker is kicked at a wrong angle, or a thruhull, you should be seeing the balls when your sending them down. At least at a stopped positIon. Try turning the sensitivity up, or surface clarity down etc to get more of a better picture. As I said there's a ton of stuff you can try but these are just some starts. I'm surprised you didn't mark much with that much travel today. Others I'm sure on here will be a huge help. This is an awesome site for this kinda of help

 

Definitely see them going down when stopped    Just not when going... I got a 385ci with 200/83khz. I think my sensitivity is up all the way though but I'm not positive, I will check for sure. Are you saying I can't be getting as much blowback as I think I am? Not sure how else to explain not seeing them. I keep my GPS speed usually between 2.2-2.9.

 

And yeah - I have not seen a screen like that yesterday or today. I have seen screens like that on Keuka, though, and I have definitely marked fish hugging the bottom in 100 FOW, but what would you say is the chance of me seeing that screen "randomly" driving around? Was this like an average screen or one where you finally found the spot?

Edited August 26, 2013 by genEus

[Frogger]

It's an average screen but there have been days wherei don't mark much either. The blowback is normal with 10lb weights. If your using the 200 try the 83. You might find your ducer is more forward as well from the cant of your boat maybe.

[Delcojim]

Maybe tilt your transducer a little to get your weights to show on the screen

[Mortigan]

Eugene - we switched to Troutman87's torpedo weights.  Now we can finally see our riggers since the blowback is so much less.