Does anyone use marker buoys to visually mark structure to be fished found on your sonar imaging? If so, how effective do you find it and describe your process.
Does anyone use marker buoys to visually mark structure to be fished found on your sonar imaging? If so, how effective do you find it and describe your process.
2004 Tracker Avalanche with 150 Mercury XR6
I mark my waypoints with a marker and then fish the structure. I have a flasher on the bow, so I mark the waypoint and look for fish with my lure! Here’s a tip...paint your buoy black. A bright color tends to attract other fishermen and sometimes pleasure boaters who think they can pick it up.
"The man of system is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it…He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chessboard.” Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Are you asking if we leave it marked permanently or only when fished? Me personally, when I find something I want to fish like a brush pile for crappie, I mark a waypoint on my helix, then troll over it and drop a bouy close by. Then I use my sonar on the bow to pinpoint the brush pile, and fish it. When I leave I pick up the bouy, as I have the brush pile marked with my gps for the next time I come back and do it again. This might change if and when I get an ultrex, but until then...
Hope this helps.
i wouldn’t leave a marker bouy in a public lake.
Yes, just when being fished. I find I have a difficult time fishing deeper structure even with my ultrex. I'm thinking a bouy will significantly help staying on target and hitting it from different angles
2004 Tracker Avalanche with 150 Mercury XR6
Depends how clear and deep the water is. I usually stay casting distance from my waypoint and use my heading censer and distance flags. With a little practice you should be able to fish a brush pile and never get the boat too close.
I never drop on what I'm fishing. When I hook a fish I will kick the buoy over just for a quick boat reference rather that staring at the screen..
Actually I have 2 way points per spot. A stop sign to hold the boat at and a number for the spot I am fishing.
When fishing a new spot Ill way point the spot then fish 360 around that spot. If I catch a fish I will kick the buoy over, and continue fishing the rest of the 360. If no other fish are caught, Ill go back to the buoy and put a stop sign. After multipliable trips I can confirm this is the correct angle to fish the spot from. Here IN Indiana most spots are not much larger than the front deck.
Too many variables come into play offshore. Current, wind direction, time of day, weather.. Most of our fish move off and suspend then will move back to feed at a certain time of the day. We just don't have the cover on the structure anymore to hold the fish, so they just use it to feed..
Southern lakes are getting some weeds back, center of the state the only grass is in the yards, natural lakes in the north have weeds. Most stumps have rotted away. Our fishing sucks compared to other states.
Last edited by brushsjigs; 08-26-2018 at 12:26 PM.
I quit all that when I got panoptix, now I just line up and cast!
We always throw a bouy when fishing brush, works for us!
I use buoys a lot.
I'm thinking I'm going to try bouts until I but my heading sensor
2004 Tracker Avalanche with 150 Mercury XR6
I do at times. When I am in a spot without good references to mark from the shore and it is holding a lot of fish, I throw one out to work back and forth until I move on to another spot.
Then I usually have to go back and get my marker as I forgot to pick it up.......
Nope. Too many using the duckett method where I fish to give them an exact point of where to throw once they fish the waypoint they marked as they drove by. Plus, I have 360. I know exactly where the structure I want to hit is
With heading sensor GPS antenna and casting rings around each waypoint, I just do not see the need for buoys any more. Haven't used them in probably 10 years. I can run right up to a waypoint, approaching from down wind so I am facing into the wind for boat control, and start casting when boat is inside the casing ring. I can have bait on structure in 20 seconds without casting boat shadows on the structure.
This...minus the 360 for me. It's mind blowing to me how brazen they are about it, as well! They'll idle right by within 20 yards, staring at their unit. Add the walleye and panfish anglers to the mix and it's a real cluster. Before I had networked units and a heading sensor, I tried throwing my marker buoy off to the side to use as a reference point for boat positioning to avoid people figuring out my exact spot. On more than one occasion, I've had to snake my way between boats fishing my marker buoy to retrieve it. That's an extreme example that's happened (more than once in a day and on different lakes, mind you) on some very-close-to-the-Twin Cities lakes where a lot of people probably don't any better to know they're being rude, but still. Combine the WAAS GPS accuracy of our advanced sonar units with networking, heading sensors, and casting rings and I usually don't need to use a marker buoy to mark a spot.Originally Posted by Wackyjig
The one situation where I will use one is if I'm on a grass flat or similar area where there's not an obvious "edge," and the wind is blowing me around. I'll kick a buoy into the water when I hook a fish so I can get back to the spot to mark a waypoint before retrieving the buoy. It's been my experience that finding one fish in an area like this usually means finding more than 1, and sometimes the area where the fish concentrate can be quite small. It also helps to be able to confirm the way the fish was positioned when you can get back to the area and see what you casted to that lead to the bite (e.g. was the fish in a hole, next to two types of weeds, next to a single stalk, buried in a small clump, buried in a huge clump, was there a specific depth, etc.) A spot lock trolling motor and/or shallow water anchors would likely remove the need for using a buoy here for me.
2011 Skeeter ZX225
225 Yamaha HPDI Series 2
Minn Kota Ultrex 112 52"
Console: HDS 16 Carbon
Bow: HDS 12 Carbon, Solix 12 G2, Mega 360, Garmin 106 SV, LVS 34
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