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SIGNUP

The low tech fish finder
by Derik Gates

Binoculars could be your best friend on the boat or on the ice this year.  I use them to double my areas when fishing a new lake or looking for a pattern.

A good example comes from a very nondescript shallow 5 – 8 foot lake.  I was looking for the bass, and there were a line-up of boats working the shoreline. Instead of lining up with the rest I took a position more mid lake, from this vantage point I could look for fish on mid lake weed beds, while using my binoculars to keep an eye on the parade of boats working the shore. That day the boats pitching to the shore did not seem to be doing very well, while I wasted no time working these seemingly obvious but non-productive waters. On the other hand I did well all day catching many decent fish.

On this day I essentially doubled my coverage of the lake.

Another example was on the ice last winter, my younger brother had come to town, and I took him out for some Ice-perch. But this day the fish were not co-operating, after 2 hours of drilling holes and moving, I pulled out my trusty binoculars. Within eyeshot of the binoculars there were about 50 anglers working different depths of water, of the I could see two guys pulling in fish after fish. It didn’t take long for us to make one more move to a location of similar distance from shore, and bam. That made all the difference, the fish were holding in about a 50 foot band that held water in the 20 –25 foot range.  Walking off the ice we stopped and chatted with several other anglers and they had no luck.  The ability to narrow our search saved the day, or at least a few more hours of drilling holes.

Now having said this, I do not move onto the same spot as anglers who are catching fish, that is bad etiquette.

This low tech fish finder can, however,  help to locate the areas that might hold fish.  And help eliminate areas that are not.