Forward facing sonar - fishing tech

[AtomApple]

i got a sweet deal on Humminbird mega live at Cabela’s. MSRP $1500, it was $500 off, plus another 15% for using my club card on Monday, plus I had over $450 in points saved, so I got it for around $440 shipped.
I figured I’d end up getting it at some point, so why not now with the sweet deal. I do think this is getting a bit too easy, but I might as well get on board with everyone else. I’d associate it to using a thermal scope for deer hunting.
I mostly fish for bass, so catch and release is 99.9% for the bass i catch.
Should be fun, but I won’t have much for excuses now.

what’s your thoughts on the new tech for fishing?

 

[swat1018]

I've got Garmin. It's a game changer for crappie. It helps bass fishing in some situations, suspended fish in deeper water, especially.

 

[Telemark]

I think it makes fishing a lot more rewarding when I know there are fish under my boat. I'm in the market for one of those Garmin Striker portable packages.

 

[SwampCat]

Doesnt help me much bass fishing - shallow water vegetation filled lakes. Big help in the winter when crappie get in the river channel

 

[bigboreblr]

I got lowrance and hummingbird both have basic side imaging and mapping. Prefer lowrance, easier to share and build detsiled maps with others.

I use it to find sweet spots, not as much fish itself.

Twch helps, it also can falsely discourage you too. Much like trail cameras.

I fish many different places, at times 1000 milesfrom home. Knowing structure helps me for sure. I somwtimes kayak past spots on jetties i shore fish too.

 

[bigboreblr]

One chunk of tech I would like is the smart trolling motors. MY camp is close to a damed up river reservoir. The smallmouth bass in the summer seem to follow a certain depth Having a boat track the same depth on its own would be great.

Not a huge fan of driving with a trailer 800 miles to north carolina, but that sonar would be great for sniffing out red drums down little channels on the side of the back bays.

I kinda like using the classic lures and not necesarily the newest stuff. rat-l-traps, diamond jigs, good old live minnows and worms.

 

[SD51555]

That new side finding fish finder is amazing. I fished with a guy that had it and we spent 30 minutes covering a large part of a frozen lake looking for a school of crappie. We found them on the 9th hole or so and pulled two limits out of it in under an hour.

Love it and hate it. The culture isn’t good up here. Word gets out and those fish get pounded until they’re gone.

Can’t get my own pond dug soon enough.


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[SD51555]

My neighbor asked the DNR about how they’re gonna handle this advanced tech, and the answer was quick and simple. They’ll crank down limits to where you can hardly keep a fish.


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[Mortenson]

My neighbor asked the DNR about how they’re gonna handle this advanced tech, and the answer was quick and simple. They’ll crank down limits to where you can hardly keep a fish.


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Enter the glory days of fishing thread.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

Enter the glory days of fishing thread.

I feel like my ears were burning…I hate FFS! And bass tournaments

 

[AtomApple]

My neighbor asked the DNR about how they’re gonna handle this advanced tech, and the answer was quick and simple. They’ll crank down limits to where you can hardly keep a fish.


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My lake up North has a 5 crappie 5 sunny (bluegill) daily limit.
I see some boats make 3 trips a day to the same spot… I shouldn’t assume I know what they are doing though.

 

[Mtyhunter]

It'll have the same impact on fishing as trail cameras did for hunting, complete game-changer for those who know how to use them effectively. They both take some of the mystery out of the outdoors, and allows targeting of the big bucks and big fish. As long as the "big uns" pipeline stays full out there, I like it. If it puts too much pressure on the big uns, I'd support limits.

 

[matinc]

Unfortunately I don't want to harp on this but your right it's a game changer for the worst. Fish populations are decreasing rapidly and this technology is destroying it even quicker. I can't wait for this to be banned as well and the people who paid for it are holding worthless technology all dnr need to step and ban both trail cams 30 days prior to season till the end of season and get rid on this fish destroying machine at once. However most dnr lack the balls to act and its so sad.

 

[swat1018]

Unfortunately I don't want to harp on this but your right it's a game changer for the worst. Fish populations are decreasing rapidly and this technology is destroying it even quicker. I can't wait for this to be banned as well and the people who paid for it are holding worthless technology all dnr need to step and ban both trail cams 30 days prior to season till the end of season and get rid on this fish destroying machine at once. However most dnr lack the balls to act and its so sad.

Lol. You should move to a communist country! Maybe you should vote for Biden again, he'll fix it... I love my trail cams and livescope. I fish private ponds and we manage them quite well.

 

[Mtyhunter]

I'm an old auto technician. Building a high-horsepower street motor that would actually run right and be driveable was hard as hell because: it was trial and error. it was networking, gleaning info from a guy who built something better than yours. it was an art. At the end you felt accomplished. Nowdays, anyone can build a 600hp small block. All they gotta do is google it up, order the parts, and there u go.
For older dudes like me, we struggle a little with the new tech because it was badge of honor to do something the hard way, learn from experience, and get better.
Tech like FFS and cell cams make us guys feel like there's not as much value to learning the hard way thru experience only, almost like any monkey could do it now.
However, I do appreciate the new tech because it's really unmasked some of the mysteries of hunting/fishing, and, as I've gotten older, it's a lot harder for me to put in the time and effort like I used to.
In the end, it all balances out for me, and I like and support all the new tech. That is, until we catch/kill all the big ones and there's nothing left....

 

[Telemark]

Tech like FFS and cell cams make us guys feel like there's not as much value to learning the hard way thru experience only, almost like any monkey could do it now.
However, I do appreciate the new tech because it's really unmasked some of the mysteries of hunting/fishing, and, as I've gotten older, it's a lot harder for me to put in the time and effort like I used to.

I think the new tech is a real help for those of us who don't have time to dedicate to learning the hard way. The world is a far more demanding place. Just communication demands are enormous compared to when I was younger. If I was outside the US, my parents might get an email from me once a month. Now we can communicate every waking minute of the day, and there is an expectation to return messages in a timely manner. And when I'm outside Norway, you better believe my wife expects to chat with me every day.

Then add in the normal things like work, household chores, walking the dog, and not having year-round access to the places I hunt and fish, plus the different species I pursue, it would take several lifetimes to learn it all the hard way.

I'm in my 40s and still not top level at anything other than maybe red deer, and that's because we have a 4 month rifle season, and I live very close to where I hunt red deer.

Even with all the technology and information online, a walleye or a whitetail don't just fall into my lap. It's still challenging. And I still haven't managed to even catch a whitefish or shoot a big whitetail buck.

I'm fine with reducing limits on fish if I can catch them more consistently. And I definitely need trail cameras to tell me if there are animals around.

 

[Mtyhunter]

yep, agree with you there. The world seems wayyyy more complicated and busier now than it used to. I attribute that to the internet and the overstimulation of information.
for example, concerning even deer hunting, it seems as if most ppl "see the guy who killed the big buck who's on top of the mountain. They want to be there with him, and now. What they don't see is the mountain he had to climb to get there. Once someone points that out, they either quit the endevour or take a helicopter"

 

[sandbur]

I have heard from musky guides that they now turn the forward imaging off as soon as they find fish, or one guide marks locations of pods of fish and returns later at prime times. He has everything turned off but gps. The fish sense the imaging and are moving away.

I hope our crappie populations can gain that ability. They are getting pounded during winter ice fishing.

 

[SD51555]

It'll be interesting to see where we're at 5 years from now. It's been a few years since I've ice fished. I have really lost interest in all the politics of it. I'm not too worried that this technology will wipe out fish populations. Most fish can reproduce in such great quantities, that there is zero chance you'd ever wipe them out. What will happen is giant holes will get blown in the food chain, and what follows that will be what decreases the quality of fishing.

There seem to be plenty of lakes in northern MN that have big sunfish, and it makes perfect sense why. Most all of those lakes are full of dink chain pickerel and stunted largemouth bass. All those dink predators gorge on 1-3" sunfish and crappie 24/7. The 0.1% that survive end up being enormous because the they have the rest of the forage base to themselves.

What probably drives differences in lakes that do have size problems is enormous amounts of cover where those small panfish can hide well enough to survive long enough so they reach 4-5" and then cannot be eaten by 99.9% of the predators in the lake, and then they run out of food.

 

[SD51555]

With all that in mind, there should be no limits at all on sunfish under 5", crappie under maybe 7", bass under maybe 10", and northerns/pickerel under 2 lbs in lakes where they're plentiful and stunted. If the bass population was culled hard enough so the remaining can grow, then a predator class would emerge for those larger stunted panfish.

Those lakes should get stocked with channel cats too. Channel cats will fill in that gap and take out that stunted group. Besides, who doesn't love a good catfish fillet? But there would have to be a way to get the cats big enough before they go in so they don't get eaten by the little bass and pickerel.