Thread: When do you stop and fish

I have a hummin bird 788 and 550 both of which have switch fire. When turned on you can see your bait on the graph. Fished in a tournament in February of this year. Was having trouble finding any good keepers that day. Seen fish all over the place but could not get them to bite. We were fishing standing timber in 25 ft of water and had the switch fire turned on to see the bait. Fish would come up to the bait and look but not take it. Got back to weigh in and out of 8 boats no one had a single keeper crappie that day. All the technology and no fish for anyone. I normally fish the spots I can see and the ones I know about already and just use the sonar to tell me if there is structure and fish around. I don't depend on it always telling me if the fish are near by as I don't normally fish under the boat. I do use it if I have fished a spot for awhile and have not gotton bit. I will then roll over the area I was casting to and check it out. This tells me if the spot holds fish or not and if it is worth coming back to on a different day or time.

I guess I'm a little different than the rest that's replied as I really depend on my sonar. I'm a longliner and before I will put lines out I want to atleast see bait if I cant see the arches of fish. Therefore, sometimes I do alot of riding and idling around in likely places looking for activity on my 2D sonar. I use arches instead of the fish symbols and I've learned to use and "trust" my sonar. Seldom will I look in water deeper than 20' as I have a hard time trying to get my jigs deep enough to catch fish in water that deep. I can usually find fish in 20' or less most of the year...it's just up to then whether they'll bite or not. And if I am in fish and they wont bite then I dont stay. I'll move and look for other fish in hopes that theyre biting in another part of the lake.

In past years I kept logs of my fishing trips so I can look back now at see where I found fish at which locations when the water temps reach higher or lower levels and which colors, weights of jigs, and speeds worked best. In my logs I always reported lake and temp conditions too. Lastly...One good rule of thumb I ALWAYS go by.....find what theyre feeding on and the fish wont be far away.