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I noticed that he had about 4 large bass on a stringer near the shoreline, which immediately sparked my attention. I started inquiring and asked him what are you using for bait? His answer surprised me. He said Bluegill. I thought to myself for a second and said "really?". I would have thought that shiners or some of the other bait sold at the Bait shop would be producing such results. He further indicated that he has been using Bluegills ever since he was a boy and has never felt the need to change.
I went home that day and did some research and found the Bluegills are a keystone species for the overall health of any healthy pond or lake. Bass, Pike and Catfish feed on them all year round. This made me think that for all the years I have been buying bait the best bait at all was free swimming right in front of me. Since that day I have supplemented my Bait shop run with a few extra hours in the morning Bluegill Fishing to fill the bait well. I still use Shiners and Suckers, but Bluegill is never out of the question while on the pursuit of a Large Bass or Pike.
They can be rigged much the same way as you hook a shiner or sucker, but I generally use a slightly larger hook as I think that the height of the Bluegill's body sometimes make it difficult to swallow for a smaller bass. Their sharp dorsal spikes are actually an asset when setting the hook as they can give some more resistance when a Bass or Pike tries to spit the hook once on the line.
Now I even have numerous lures that resemble Bluegill in my tackle box. All of these lures have slight variations of color, but have the general shape of a bluegill.
How to Use a Fish Finder to Catch More Fish
Using a fish finder to locate fish is not difficult, but it does take some practice and some getting used to. The first thing to do after buying a fish finder is obvious- Read the Manual! The manual may not be exciting or may have more technical information than you are interested in reading, but it cannot be stressed enough how important it is to read the manual in order to familiarize yourself with the unit you purchased.
The next thing to do will be to mount your fish finder. Whether you are using a transom mount, trolling motor mount, hull mount or a portable mount, your manual will be able to walk you through the steps to properly mount your model. If in doubt, consult a professional or have a professional mount it for you.
Now you are ready to turn on your fish finder and get ready to catch more fish. When you first turn the unit on, it will be in automatic mode, meaning that the pre-programmed settings will be in use. As you become more familiar with your model, you will be able to switch to manual mode and customize the settings to the fishing conditions you experience. To begin, leave the fish finder on automatic and take a five minute spin around the lake, bay or ocean that you fish in. Watch the display constantly to get a feel for what you see. Don't worry about catching fish or understanding everything on the display yet. That will come with experience.
Now start adjusting one feature at a time and become familiar with that feature. One of the key settings to play around with is the Sensitivity setting. When you adjust the unit's sensitivity you are adjusting the power of the fish finder. The simple rule of thumb is, the lower the power (sensitivity) the lower the quality of the view on the display. Experts recommend setting the sensitivity to between 75 and 100%. Trial and error will be the best way to determine the optimal setting for your model.
The next setting to visit in manual mode, is the Fish ID setting. Once you have a feel for your unit, turn off the Fish ID feature and try to get used to reading the fish arches that you will see naturally on the screen. The fish icons displayed by the Fish ID are useful for true beginners, but once you begin to familiarize yourself with the display it is better to learn how to read the natural fish arches. The fish arches will give you a more accurate view of what is under water.
Another feature, Auto Depth, is best used at its pre-programmed setting as you begin using your fishfinder. Using the pre-programmed setting will tell the unit to automatically track the bottom and is best used when you are new to using sonar. As you become more of an expert, you can manually set the upper and lower limits of the display window. The smaller the display window you set the better the resolution will be. In general, expert anglers eliminate the top few feet of water and stop the scan about ten feet below the true bottom. The display window size will of course vary depending on how deep the water is and what type of fish you are looking to catch. Experiment with the display window size until you are comfortable with both the amount of water you can view and the picture resolution.
As you are becoming more and more familiar with your fish finder, you will notice a horizontal line across the screen. This line is the Depth Cursor and can be moved up or down on the display. When you find some fish, adjust the depth cursor to cut through the fish arches and the unit will tell you exactly how deep those fish are. Now you know exactly how deep to drop your bait.
One last feature to touch on in this article is the suppressor setting. This setting tells the unit how much "back ground" noise to filter out. Eliminating the back ground noise may be helpful, but if your transducer is mounted properly it is generally unnecessary. If you find you have to use the suppressor to locate fish, then you should check that your transducer is mounted correctly. In general you want to have the suppressor off as having the suppressor setting too high can block the sonar signal entirely and you won't find fish that way!
Using a fish finder can seem pretty daunting at first, but like anything else in life, it just takes practice. Don't be afraid to experiment with your model, try different settings, and see what happens. Trial and error will ultimately help you tune your fish finder to the perfect configuration for your fishing experience. Before you know it you will locate more fish than you know how to catch. Good luck and have fun fishing!
Catch Bigger Fish On Lures - Lateral Thinking For Lure Makers
Now, we've all heard of the lateral line, right? It's the little line that runs from the gill cover to the tail of most fish?
And we all know that the fish use it to sense vibration in the water, yes?
But just how sensitive is the lateral line and why is this important to people who make or fish with artificial lures?
Well, I'm about to tell you a story that will show exactly how sensitive the lateral line is.
My story starts in the winter of 1994, in the years before a closed season unnecessarily spoiled the winter fun of many a catch and release trout fisherman who was targeting large sea-run fish at the river mouths, well away from the spawning grounds upstream. But I digress.....
In those days I was a little less obsessed with making my own lures than I am today, and although most of my leisure time was spent in this pursuit I did sometimes allow myself to engage in other forms of fishing. That season I was doing quite a bit of fly fishing, and I was learning from a good buddy who was very skilled in the art. When I first started, we were chasing fish that were feeding on baitfish migrating upstream from the estuary, and we were using a particular pattern of wet fly called an Olive Matuka. This little fly was barely an inch and a half long, but matched the size, shape and color of the baitfish well.
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My first trip out I stood on the banks of the swollen river watching the muddy brown water rush past and looking at the little fly at the end of my line wondering how a fish was ever going to find it. My buddy assured me that the fish would find it, so with more than an ounce of scepticism I started to make few casts. We were just downstream of a small road bridge, and the pocket immediately below one of the pylons had been a productive spot for me during the summer months, so I flicked a cast in there. The current was so fast that the fly was dragged from where I wanted it to be in an instant and was carried downstream. I worked it back and had another cast, this time stripping the line back as fast as I could from the instant the fly hit the water. Whack! My first brown trout from a flooded Merri River.
Over the next couple of months we caught a lot of trout out of that river, and each time I marvelled that the fish had managed to find my little fly in amongst all of that dirty, fast flowing water. But find it they did. Regularly.
Late one day I was on my way home when I crossed the river at that same road bridge and couldn't resist the temptation to stop for a cast or two. It was raining heavily and the sun was low in the sky, so combined with the dirty water I was dubious about whether the trout would find my fly. I wasn't disappointed, and looking back I guess I also shouldn't have been surprised.
To cut a long story short, over the next couple of years I continued to visit that spot with my trusty fly rod during the winter floods. I fished in daylight and I fished on the darkest, moonless of nights. I used black flies, I used green flies, I used white flies. I caught trout, consistently.
Now a wet fly is a lot smaller than a lure, doesn't create a fraction of the vibration in the water and has a much more slender silhouette. Yet the fish consistently found it despite low light, extremely dirty water and strong currents that whipped the fly away from the fish's hidey hole almost instantly and caused plenty of noise and turbulence around any structure. The fish couldn't possibly have been feeding visually, so if they could sense a little wet fly, just imagine how easily they can sense a crankbait!
I'm a professional aquatic scientist, so I know a couple of things about fish. But I must confess that even I had no real appreciation until that time of just how sensitive the lateral line was. If I hadn't seen it repeatedly first hand, I doubt I would have believed it!
The Lateral Line
The lateral line on most fish runs along the full length of the fish's body and is made up of a small groove or canal. At the head of the fish it divides into three branches, two of which run along the top of the head to the snout and the third to the bottom jaw. The sensory cells in the lateral line are beneath the skin and contain small hairs in mucous like substance. These hairs are incredibly sensitive to water pressure from one direction, and allow the fish to sense its own movement as well as any other movement in the vicinity.
How to use this knowledge
You don't have to be Einstein to work out the importance of this information to fishermen.
How many times have you been amazed at how fish have found your lure?
Ever caught fish on a dark night with a black lure. Of course!
What about in turbulent, foamy water? Yup.
Maybe in a muddy, flooded river? That too!
The reason you are amazed is because you are thinking that fish feed the same way you do. You're assuming that they see your lure, when in fact they are actually feeling it! Have you ever had someone or something brush past and just lightly touch the hairs on your arm? Even if you were looking the other way, you'd sense this and turn to see what it was. This is how it is with fish, only their sense is much, much more refined and they are very tuned in to it.
So, how does this help you to catch fish? Well, here are some thoughts:
The sense most used by humans is sight. In the underwater world, vision can quickly be obliterated by algae, mud or bubbles in the water, so fish feed more by smell and by feel than they do by sight. Never assume that it's too dark, too murky or too turbulent for fish to find your lure. If there are fish there and you can make the lure swim, they'll find it.
If you are fishing in hard-fished waters and want to make your lure stand out, changing the vibration it sends out may be just as important as changing the size, shape or color. Try adding a rattle, or trim the bib a little to change the swimming action, or vary the retrieve more.
If fish are that sensitive to vibrations, then using a lure that is too noisy can be like shouting at them. If it's an aggressive species, this may work, but for species that are a little shy it may actually send them scurrying. Choose your lure for the target species
Obviously, choose noisier lures with strong actions and plenty of rattle for low visibility situations, but use less noisy lures in small, quiet and/or clear waterways
Anything you do to change the vibration of a lure will make it different from anything the fish have been exposed to before. That's why so many of my lure making buddies have set out to copy a commercial lure for their own use and have finished up with one that works better than the original! They've used different materials or made something ever so slightly different and it's changed the way the lure feels to the fish. Presto!
Buy our award winning fishing lures at www.escalure.co.uk. These fishing lures are guaranteed to improve your catch rate success
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