Edwin Evers on Electronics....

Eye on Electronics
By Edwin Evers


I travel all over the country and get to talk bass fishing with hundreds of people every year. When we talk about lures or rods or reels or fish behavior, everybody is attentive and hanging on every word.

But as soon as you start talking about electronics, you can see their eyes glaze over and watch them lose interest. It happens almost every time.

The truth of the matter is that electronics are becoming more and more important for every bass angler whether he or she wants to admit it or not. Intelligent fishing pressure all over the country is creating a group of fish that can be harder to catch than ever before. The bass are still there, but they've seen a lot of boats, a lot of lures and a lot of pretty good fishermen. Many of them have been caught at least once before. To continue to be successful, we need to be skilled with every tool available to us, and that includes electronics.

The first mistake a lot of guys make with their depthfinder is trying to use it in the wrong places. If you want to learn how to catch deep water fish, you need to go somewhere where there are deep water (20-30 feet) fish to be caught. Don't go to Lake Toho or the Arkansas River to try to learn this. Go someplace it can really work.

The next thing you should do is idle around until you start to see some fish on the screen. And remember, if the unit says they are there, they really are there.

Now, and this may be easier said than done, try to catch them. I realize they may not be bass, so you'll want to bring some lures or live bait with you that might catch a striper or catfish or bluegill, but try to catch them anyway. It'll give you a lot of confidence in your electronics and your ability to use them. Plus, you'll learn something about fish behavior and where they hold.

I generally don't use buoy markers when fishing deep water, but I used them a lot before the days of really accurate GPS systems. Now I rely on my GPS to keep me within casting distance of the spots I've found.

My sonar and GPS system of choice is the Lowrance LCX-28C HD, and I have one on the bow of my boat and another on the console. I usually run the unit with the split screen feature so that I can see the sonar readings as well as my GPS information.

While some anglers only use the waypoints in their GPS unit to mark potential fishing hotspots, I use mine to mark all kinds of things from an interesting looking boat dock to a water color transition to a landmark on the bank. I mark anything different with them. Later, when I've done some fishing and figured out a successful pattern, I can sometimes look at my GPS waypoints and remember other areas where the pattern will work. Without logging everything in like that, there's no way I could remember all of it on an unfamiliar body of water. Instead I'd be asking myself, "Now where was that laydown?"

Like anything else with fishing, there are few substitutes for time on the water. Get out there and use your electronics, and you'll start to see positive results.

Until next time, good fishing!