Humminbird’s Side Imaging sonar and fall crappies

  • jhalfen
    Posts: 4179
    August 31, 2009 at 4:29 pm #1294866

    I’ve touched on this topic before, but it’s worth revisiting now that fall is approaching and crappies are balling up in larger and larger groups.

    While pre-fishing for the FLW walleye league finals, I’ve been encountering a growing number of schools of crappies. What makes these schools so much fun is that they are very easy to find using my Humminbird 1197…and once they’ve been found, they’re even easier to catch.

    Here’s a look at what a school of “open water” crappies looks like, marked with the red arrow. Using traditional 2D sonar, you would need to drive right over the school to find it. However, with Humminbird’s industry-leading Side Imaging technology on board, I can keep my boat far away from the school (to avoid spooking the fish), yet still be able to find it and pin down its location. This particular school was found over a rocky bottom; you can see the rocks and their shadows on the left side of the image. This is one of many schools I have imaged in the past couple of weeks.

    jhalfen
    Posts: 4179
    August 31, 2009 at 4:30 pm #801656

    Finding these schools of late summer-early fall crappies is really 90% of the battle. Catching them is a piece of cake. One method that I’ve been using to pick off the most active fish from the school is to long-line crankbaits above them. The most active fish will rise up and hit a fast-moving crankbait. This picture shows one example of these over-aggressive crappies. While this method is typically good for only a couple fish, it is a fast way to pick off a few before slowing down to finesse some more.

    jhalfen
    Posts: 4179
    August 31, 2009 at 4:30 pm #801657

    Once the most active fish have made a visit to the boat, I typically have to slow down to tempt the remaining neutral fish. One way that I’ve been using is to drift light jigs, typically 1/16 oz, tipped with minnows through the school. I cast the baits far away from the boat, and use the wind or a low speed setting on my MinnKota Terrova 101 to move me at 0.2-0.4 mph through the school. I use fatheads to do this, rather than smaller crappie minnows, and my reward has been a nice average size (right around 11″) with larger fish in the mix as well.

    orangewhip3x
    Blaine
    Posts: 109
    August 31, 2009 at 6:11 pm #801688

    Jason, I love your posts…If possible when you are posting the images from your SI can you include the portion of the screen shot that provides perspective; depth, speed and range/distance of the SI. This information helps me to more clearly understand the info you are showing us and provides perspective to the size of objects.

    For instance in this post I really can’t get a feel for how large the crappie school is with exception of comparing it to the rocks, then I’d need to understand how large the rocks are…assuming they are small rocks this would be a relatively small school of crappies and very tightly grouped.

    Do you use the side imaging as a “real time” tool to go back and cast to the group as you image it live or do you just mark the way point and then go back to the way point?

    Thanks for all your input on this topic it is really helping me understand my 997.

    chris-tuckner
    Hastings/Isle MN
    Posts: 12318
    August 31, 2009 at 6:33 pm #801698

    Good question!!

    I got to play around with a 997 this weekend and was very impressed. I am assuming, and please correct me if I am wrong..but the clear water where the crappies are is the water column and obviously the bottom is the moon looking structure. So would I take from this that the scan is coming from the left (Passenger’s side) of the boat looking out that way? Or is the print inverted?

    We were actually looking for suspended crappies using this very concept.

    jhalfen
    Posts: 4179
    August 31, 2009 at 9:25 pm #801755

    Quote:

    If possible when you are posting the images from your SI can you include the portion of the screen shot that provides perspective; depth, speed and range/distance of the SI.

    Do you use the side imaging as a “real time” tool to go back and cast to the group as you image it live or do you just mark the way point and then go back to the way point?

    Orangewhip,

    Thanks for the feedback. The original image is included below. Hopefully that gives you the perspective you’re looking for. My typical Side Imaging range is 125 feet.

    My approach was a combination of both….I would drive along, drop waypoints on schools of crappies, and then relatively quickly double back and (1) troll through the waypoints, and (2) drift light jigs. If I lost contact with a school, I would just start driving around until I marked them again.

    If a guy found 3-4 schools of crappies like this, it would be a fun way to kill a day! And doing that should get increasingly easy to do as the water cools down.

    jhalfen
    Posts: 4179
    August 31, 2009 at 9:33 pm #801757

    That’s the correct interpretation Chris.

    Here’s the magic of Side Imaging:

    When I switched to the traditional 2D view, can you guess that it showed?

    NOTHING!

    These fish were 100% off the port side of the boat. Down-looking sonar completely missed them. But their presence is revealed definitively by Side Imaging.

    drifter295
    Hastings MN
    Posts: 413
    August 31, 2009 at 10:48 pm #801776

    sure hope Santa brings me one of those side imaging units for xmas…..oh wait I haven’t been very good….guess I’ll have to keep saving my pennies til spring

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