EricM, Chick, Blue cat (none) but fish on sonar, 02-15-11

[EricM]

I took the boat out for a couple of more break-in hours on the rebuild, and while I was out I found a nice pile of fish that simply didn't want anything to do with me today. The current had dropped pretty much by the time I decided to fish, but still it is a bit of a disappointment when you see a whole flock of big fish and can't catch a single one. I had one small nibble, and that was it!

The Perry rebuild is running very well, I have 5 hours on it with about 5 to go. Very strange to me is that it has no hole shot now. Even with just 3000 rpm from a standstill, the center console bay boat magically just rises to the surface and is on plane at about 23 mph, with me, and 300 pounds of bait tank and water, and about 200 lb of fuel, and 4 batteries, and...,and...,and..., etc. No nose pointing in the air and a minimum of trim is even necessary. We won't know the speeds she will get until break-in is over, but I expect 40+/-. The bad news is it took $75 in gas and $15 in oil to fill up today, and I still had 6 gallons in the tank before I started filling!!!!

Here's a snapshot from the sonar where I couldn't catch a single fish:

 

[EricM]

Whoops! What a lot of pixels in the Humminbird snapshot! I'll have to learn how to reduce the pixel count so I don't have to resize it so small! Sorry!!

 

[EricM]

Better?? GIF format works well.

 

[EricM]

Another spot today, mostly paddlefish I believe:

 

[Triton Trent]

Thanks for the report. Cool sonar pics.

 

[shsimons]

I don't know what I did with my manual, but the first screen looks like mine. Why are there some arches and then some register as a fish and a number? what does that mean?

 

[Crizzel]

He has the fish ID on.

 

[EricM]

Yep, with the fish ID on, if the return meets certain criteria it will show as a fish symbol and marks the depth of that particular fish. I have it set so that it only shows very large returns as fish to keep from cluttering the screen with smaller fish (sensitivity down to about 2 or 3). It still shows the raw data (fish arches) so I'm not losing data and can still see baitfish schools and "smaller" fish like bass, crappie, white bass, etc.

 

[foodsaver]

Its so frustrating when you can see them and they won't cooperate. I haven't seen that side imaging view before. Looks easier to look at then the standard colors...

 

[fischnrod]

Do you have a map card in or is that standard out of box?

 

[EricM]

I bought it with the Navionics maps pre-loaded (NVB). Their map card will give you the same info - in this case, Chick has been re-surveyed and is in high-def. I can't imagine that anything will change for years and years, but if it does I can get an updated card then.

 

[drumking]

5 more hours, then you really get to burn the gasoline! Nice pics. Do you think that those fish would have hit a horny toad? Were you fishing 1 foot deep? Was the gravitational pull of the moon moving your bait out of the way? Paddle fish don't hit skipjacks. But I love to read your reports. emoPoke emoThumbsup emoToast emoBigsmile emoGeezer

 

[shad]

great pics

 

[loc doc]

Looks like they were tangle up in a net and could not get to your bait.