Where do you head out from, what size boat and what type of sounder?



Keep it tight, reeeeeeel tight!



*****RECFISH MEMBER*****

G'day Milsey

The first (perhaps obvious) tip is know how to get the best out of your sounder and learn to read various bottoms, sand, weed, coral, rock etc.

If you scuba dive, all the better, because you can sight the bottom and then look over the sounder. So you can drop the pick in various locations and then drop over the side and confirm the bottom. Then take pics of the images and label them - so you gain experience in telling the difference.

Finding new ground at best, can be luck, as you happen to notice structure whilst underway - always keep an eye on the sounder - a good sounder, with correctly set up transducer should be able to read the bottom at decent cruising speeds - well, at least until you start getting into deeper waters (perhaps 100m+)

Otherwise, and those that are successful have all done it, it's just a lot of work moving around.

That said, there are still times when you can look at a chart and head towards obvious structure - yes; many of these are heavily fished, but you just never know what's moved into that area.

Personally, I think it's a great personal reward to find your own spots - even if it involves a lot of work. It gives you a great sense of personal acheivement.

Hope that helps a bit. 

Colin Molloy

(Colin 2 - Co-founding member of the prestigious Colin Club)

we have a 21' quinny and a lowrance LMS-527C DF iGPS Sonar/GPS Chartplotter. We normally lanch from lewin or woodies. im ok at using the plotter but dont really no what to look for on the GPS like holes, lumps contour lines ect.Ive found plenty of good shallow reefs which produce skippy, Black Arse and occasionly snapper,
but when out deeper i get a little lost.

cheers

contour lines close together will show bigger drop off and round circles will show hole like area's as such, i take it your running a navionics card in the lowrance, so your one up from the c-map, just watch your sounder as you head near theose area's and look for rises and falls, sometimes it only needs to be not even a meter and it will produce good fish.

What area of perth are you fishing?

Yeah beat me to it mako! One thing i have learnt off perth is that a 1m rise can produce some quality fish.



Keep it tight, reeeeeeel tight!



*****RECFISH MEMBER*****

65 to 10m ...gloat..gloat...gloat

Colin Molloy

(Colin 2 - Co-founding member of the prestigious Colin Club)

one thing to watch for is a darkening and thickening of the bottom,usually on an edge this shows it better than the rise of the edge itself.Sometimes its just a bit of rock?that doesn't rise up enough to make a change in bottom hardness