fish locator

[minnowtime]

I'm having problems finding structures on my fish locator after getting close with my GPS. Any tricks of the trade you care to pass on. Thanks

[meatdragger]

Make sure the sensitivity is set high. Sometimes you just have to go back and forth over the GPS spot until you hit the brush. Take some marker boueys with you and throw one out when you go over the brush. It can be frustrating sometimes trying to pin point them.

[coyote]

I'm having problems finding structures on my fish locator after getting close with my GPS. Any tricks of the trade you care to pass on. Thanks

What Meatdragger said,
I have been helping with the brush on Oologah for the last 3 years and sometimes the cords can be off as much as 20ft when the save button was pushed. Factor in another +/- 12ft for any given gps device you might have and it can be a bit challenging. I go the cords and throw out a marker and then start moving in circle around the buoy until I find the brush. Sometimes I will delete the waypoint that I put in manually from corps site and redo it while I am on top of the brush if it is very far off.

[minnowtime]

My locator has a 12 deg cone so with that I'm only seeing 2' area at 10' ow
or 4' at 20'. So looks like I will spend more time looking with pole in hand. Maybe the pole or locator will find the brush/fish. Also getting more markers to throw.
Thanks Meatdragger/coyote

[meatdragger]

Have you thought about a better fish finder? You can get a pretty good black and white one for less than $200 bucks.

[minnowtime]

I'm looking at Humminbird 718 or the Lowrance Mark-5x. Anyone have any good or bad experience with these units?

[meatdragger]

I would check BBC, they have various forums similar to this site. They have some buy and sell forums one of which is for electronics. I picked up a Lowrance 522c with internal GPS for $375 brand new. There are tons of finders for sale there and the guys on the forums are all pretty trustworthy, there never seems to be any issues with buying and selling. You can find everything from little basic black and white models all the way up to giant color gps finders with side imaging and structure scan. I don't know anything about the ones you mentioned, I have 2 522c's on my boat and love them. Sorry I can't be of more help.

[CrappieThug]

If you really want to spend some money, get a side imaging unit, you'll be blown away.

[meatdragger]

Minnowtime, I looked at the Mark -5x at Bass Pro yesterday. That is a good locator. You won't have any issue finding what's below you. I would buy it if that price range is your budget and you have a handheld GPS already. If you are willing to spend $400 then you can pick up a 520c with external GPS or a 522c with internal GPS and you will be so happy you did. These models aren't made anymore, they were replaced by the HDS units but you can find them online new and used. I have 2 522cs on my boat and I'm a different fisherman because of them. Good luck and if you want, I will be happy to show you how I locate them anytime.

[meatdragger]

Oh, and one other tip.

Your GPS will not show your position or direction very well if you are doing circles in a small area so it is difficult to tell what's going on if your spinning around trying to find the brush. What works better for me is to back off the spot about 50 or 100 feet and make long passes over it until it blows up on your fish finder. If I pass right over the GPS spot and I don't see it then I try again from a different angle, like criss-crossing it. If I still don't find it then I start making passes on different sides of the GPS spot until I do find it.

My GPS will leave a trail of where I have been so I can see where I was and I won't keep going over the same spot if it wasn't there. If yours will do that, turn it on.