As it relates to cat fishing, how much do you use your sonar?
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 meaning “I couldn’t get along without it”, rate your use in your waters.
What about side imaging units? Do you use them? Have they helped YOU find cats?
Inquiring minds want to know. 
10. I wouldn’t go fishing without mine. I’d love a side image unit but only after I hit the lottery.
Find wood,find cats.Find holes in banks and under cut banks,find cats pre-spawn.
Took Ben out 2 years ago and he got a 42 lber,couldn’t figure out why they held there.He went back solo and used down imaging and found out the area was full of big wood and side pockets.Now he no longer belives I can smell a good spot a block away. 
So I rate use at around 7. 
I don’t understand all this technical talk 
I don’t fish for cats on purpose( all you need is a #5 Flicker Shad and Leadcore anyway) But it was way cool to see em in behind the logs with Structure Scan 
! I catch all my trolling sand flats anyway, logs snag your crankbaits anyway 
Yes even Bass 
guys catch Cats
Who let the bassholes in here? What kind of bass guy has a name like Moreyes? It takes a special kind of person to spend 50 grand on a boat to race other bass guys in an effort to catch more bait than the others. Accidents don’t count.
Rub it in Moreyes, someday I’ll have a pretty sparkly boat and then I can call myself a bass guy too.
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As it relates to cat fishing, how much do you use your sonar?
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 meaning “I couldn’t get along without it”, rate your use in your waters.
What about side imaging units? Do you use them? Have they helped YOU find cats?
In my eyes it is a lot like when you first learned to masturbate. Once you figure it out, you don’t know if you can ever stop
A sonar with a GPS is integral to most fishing I do. It helps me locate minor changes in the structure, helps find that “spot on the spot”.
It also helps me locate areas that I have fished in the past that I cannot see, underwater logjams that were uncovered when I first spotted them, and helps me navigate at night. The better I learn to use my equipment, the better fisherman I become.
I could fish without it, but it would be tough 
You Mr. Farmboy are going to go blind.
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You Mr. Farmboy are going to go blind.
There are 2 types of people in this world, people who admit to using sonar, and liars
I snag tons of cats using sonars
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I snag tons of cats using sonars
Winter time flats…..want to film a show ?
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I snag tons of cats using sonars
Winter time flats…..want to film a show ?
“Accidents” don’t count. 
Getting back on track before Pug gets in here with his clonk…
I guess what I was trying to get at was are you going out searching for locations using your sonar and if so, rating it.
I’m not sure if there’s many that would take off their sonar just because they’re going cat fishing.
Ok back to my Coffee,
I do use mine, but probably not as much as some. My river is shallow and small. Not much in terms of wood you can’t see. I do use it a little bit just to see if this haven’t changed, but for the most part what you see is what you get.
I used it more when I started fishing my pool, but now I have a pretty good idea of where I’m going. If I were to fish a new pool or river it would definately be a 10, but on familiar water I would say a 5.
I fish for cats on a lake and in the spring when the weeds are down I use my side imaging to find schools of channel cats. This year using my sonar I never got skunked. Other years when I’d just go out and pick a spot or even drift I could catch fish or I could get skunked. I love the side imaging and I give it a 10. I’ll post some screen shots of one evening this spring when I got a bunch of channels using side imaging.On this evening I took my friend Brian and his 80 year old grandmother out for some catfishing. You can plainly see the cats in the screen shots. When I see schools like this I anchor up and the fun always follows.
Farm,
I think Masters and Johnson might like to have a talk with you.
Jerry cheats at catfishing. Now every ahole with an expensive sonar is going to get after my fish. I’d argue that bigger fish don’t school. Now if you start going after singles now that would be something to see. PS I get skunked often in the spring but I do enjoy the search.
I’ll have to trust your word Jerry. To me it looks like hard water marks on your bird…from here.
But the if certainly look impressive!
Brian, there are some hard water spots on those pictures because I took those with my camera but those other long white marks are fish. Here are some screen shots taken internally on my HB1197 so there’s no reflection from the screen. The first one was taken when the boat was moving. For the others the boat was stopped so the background looks streaked but the catfish swimming through the side imaging beam look like fish. Notice the sonar shadows behind the fish.
Nope- those don’t look like water spots! LOL!
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Farm,
I think Masters and Johnson might like to have a talk with you.
Jerry cheats at catfishing. Now every ahole with an expensive sonar is going to get after my fish. I’d argue that bigger fish don’t school. Now if you start going after singles now that would be something to see. PS I get skunked often in the spring but I do enjoy the search.
Kevin, Masters and Johnson? I don’t think we have to worry too much about people with expensive sonars catching all our catfish. Most of those guys are out finding walleyes and bass and aren’t even interested in catfish.LOL
I’d have to beg to differ with you about the big ones schooling. Last spring I found a school of big channel cats. I got eight big channels out of that school in about 20 minutes and my friend who was fishing off the front of the boat didn’t get any.
That is cool Jerry. Especially in shallow water. Most of the pictures I have seen from SI are from water quite a bit deeper. The downside is that I would be trying to catch that one school of carp all day….
On a small river, it seems to be more like keep going until the shallow water alarm kicks in. I think the deepest I saw was 19′. Marked some logs too, right before I bumped them with the motor.
If you look at some of the shadows on those shots you can clearly see the dorsal which no other fish has one like that. I know that they school at times but bigger ones are in my experience more lonely. I’ve got a number of big fish in the spring where I get one single bite. I’d think if you looked for big marks and fished at singles you might find a monster. I certainly can’t debate the pictures. when you find those pods of fish are you throwing cut bait right on the bottom or using floats?
Most of the time I throw cut bait on the bottom but I have bought a bunch of Kat Bobbers that I’m going to try next spring. Every once in a while I get a big northern with cut bait on the bottom and I think I may get even more with the bait suspended under a float. I’ve never got a northern over 40 inches yet but I’ve come real close on Lake Mendota.
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Most of the time I throw cut bait on the bottom but I have bought a bunch of Kat Bobbers that I’m going to try next spring. Every once in a while I get a big northern with cut bait on the bottom and I think I may get even more with the bait suspended under a float. I’ve never got a northern over 40 inches yet but I’ve come real close on Lake Mendota.
I used to think pike only bit cut suckers during first ice and last ice. Since then I have seen them taken in every season, but like you, I have yet to see a big one taken on cutbait.
Last year fellow IDOer Swollen Goat and I really got our first shot at fishing with even a depth finder on the Minnesota, and I tell ya, it paid dividends. Sight fishing a smaller river is one thing, but being able to mark the depth changes is another thing all together.
I just bought a new (to me) rig with a fairly nice depth finder on it and I really look forward to making the most of it next year.
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