Ping Goes the Walleye |
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Ping Goes the Walleye By Sheldon Hatch I often get asked if I use my sonar to view fish. You bet I do - my electronics are my eyes under the water and they allow me to mark the depth range of fish or schools of bait fish. A tip for marking suspended fish is to go over them at about 5-10 mph, this way they |
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Once I have made it to my predefined location, I turn the boat around and troll over the marked schools. In August when the water temperatures are warm the suspended fish near the surface are usually active. I still believe this is one of the reasons so many walleye anglers have very little success in the warm months of summer – they are fishing to deep and close to bottom. If the high running fish you are marking do not co-operate, you can try targeting the fish relating to bottom structure or under schools of baitfish. So the next time you are out on your local lake in the middle of summer try moving out to deeper water and see if you ping and catch a few suspended walleye. < Back to Articles |
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do not have a chance to move out of the way of the boat. I often watch the sonar screen closely for suspended fish near the surface as the boat comes down off plane. When you are at trolling speeds the fish close to the surface will move out to the side of an approaching boat therefore not passing through the transducer cone so you will not mark any on your screen. Try to keep an eye out for very faint half arches as the fish swim out of the sonar cone. A nice feature on Lowrance sonar units is the HyperScroll™ which permits the unit to mark and display fish targets at higher boat speeds. I often use this feature to mark schools of bait fish while traveling by punching in waypoints on the GPS as I pass over schools.