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Techno Walleyes 2006
To explore efficiently with electronics rather than frittering away time trolling over miles of nothingness, Parsons switches into high-speed search mode with specific settings on his Lowrance LCX-111C HD. (For detailed instructions, see sidebar, "Sonar Sleuthing" on the next page.)
Around structure, the difference between Parsons' and Kavajecz's methodologies becomes more apparent. While Parsons starts with sonar and yields to the camera almost as a last resort if he can't catch what he's marking, Kavajecz employs camera and sonar simultaneously.
Because Kavajecz keeps the lens near enough to bottom to see it at all times, the drill can get a little dicey: He says he sheared off three camera cords last year. But what his camera use achieves with meticulous viewing takes time. And what he gains in thoroughness, he sacrifices in time spent. Kavajecz might gain an in-depth understanding of three spots, when Parsons perhaps checks 20 or more during a day of tournament prefishing.
Another aspect of their differences is that Parsons tries to catch fish he marks and fine-tune a pattern, while Kavajecz spies both his locator and camera while running lines at the same time to get an inkling of what's happening. With Kavajecz's approach, he identifies species and bottom content, maybe even catching some of the target species, en route to unraveling the pattern. "I'm looking to find where the fish are," he says, "and catch some in an area with the absolute best concentration -- and find out if they're walleyes or a bunch of other fish."
SONAR SLEUTHING
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What a difference a mere five years makes in marine electronics. Not so long ago, Lowrance's top-of-the-line LMS-350A, a combo monochrome liquid-crystal sonar and GPS, boasted 200 vertical pixels and 1500 watts of peak-to-peak power. Now the LCX-111C HD, a color sonar and GPS, with internal hard drive and accompanying storage capacity for high-detailed hydrographic maps and charts, ups the ante with 600 vertical pixels and 8000 watts of peak-to-peak power.
From a practical standpoint when searching for walleyes, you were once lucky to mark fish at, ahem, "cruising" speeds of 3, perhaps 4, mph. Fast-forward to today: The 111C shows fish while on-plane at speeds in the neighborhood of 20 mph.
To do so, the first priority is mounting the transducer. Kavajecz's preferred placement with a skimmer-style 200-kilohertz job is 1/4 inch below the plane of the boat. Farther down and an air pocket that shrouds the skimmer interferes with readings, at even minimal speeds. It's also important to position the transducer away from rivets, strakes, or reverse chines that cause bubbles and hinder clear readings.
Beyond that, the fine points are all in the settings. With sonar sensitivity set in automatic mode, Parsons turns it up until the screen turns unreadable with clutter. Then he dials it down 1 or 2 percent until the confusion fades. Parsons says you're going to be in the 88- to 96-percent range.
In "auto" mode, the machine boosts sensitivity on softer mud and decreases it on harder bottom or when you get shallower. Further keys are to crank ping speed and chart speed, both of which affect how fast sonar impulses are dispatched and returned to the unit, to 100 percent. Correspondingly, turning up the ping quickens the rate at which the sonar signal is interpreted by the unit's processors.
Know that when you get going at 15 to 20 mph, fish are not going to show up in tidy horizontal arcs that resemble inverted smiles (they'll do that just fine in slow motion, though). Rather, at such brisk paces fish are displayed in vertical lines, a function of the unit compressing the signal, given the speed. But despite upright marks that resemble twigs, a pixel or two of orange or red on the color screen indicates large walleyes of 6 or 7 pounds or more.
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Continued -- click on page link below.
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