sonar....? crappie primarily

[J-Doc]

Sorry zin65622.

This has taken a fork to the philosophical side of advanced sonar technology in general. I stand by my recommendations above. It's all in what you need and what you can afford.

I have an HDS10 at the console and HDS7 on the bow. If I could have gotten an HDS12 for both front and rear, I would have. But I was trying to be reasonable with the wife when I ordered the boat. Plus I figured I would have to take it down to an HDS8 front and rear.

They are tools.

Only as good as the user.

[Seth]

I guess I just don't like the feeling of being dependent on stuff like that.

Brushpiles or other sunken irregularities aren't hard to find. A few parallel casts with the right bait will tell you real quick if there is something there that's holding active fish. Quicker probably than making multiple boat passes then circling back to "fish it".

Being able to see exactly what it is might cause me to fish it longer than I should since most of the best looking cover/structure doesn't consistently produce squat.

You're only dependent if you choose to be that way. Like I said, there are many times when I don't ever bother using my sonar because it isn't needed. It's just a tool to help find what you're looking for, but you still have to know what to look for in the first place and that comes from spending time on the water and putting fish in the boat. A good angler with no sonar is going to fish circles around somebody with all the latest toys and no clue on how to catch fish in the first place. Now if that good angler knows how to read a graph well, he is going to be an even more effective angler.

As for you finding brush piles with your rod faster than I can with my side scan, you're dreaming! I can graph for 5 minutes, find all the brush in a good sized cove and then hit each one. If you don't get any fish in a short amount of time, then move on. Regardless of whether you found the brush with sonar or the old fashioned way, it should have no effect on how you fish that piece of cover. That is the part you figure out with a rod in your hand. You're going to know within a few casts if there are active crappie on those piles.

.They are tools.

Only as good as the user.

This sums it up perfectly.

[Terrierman]

I am a big play baby and like toys. Especially useful toys. I had a Lowrance LMS 350 A, one of the early ones they sold in that series. It was a game changer for me.