What do Bait Fish Look Like on a Fish Finder a.k.a. Bait Balls On June 17, 2013
Everybody wants to know what a fish looks like with their sonar. The next question is, what do baitfish look like on sonar a.k.a. bait balls? Bait is important for finding fish that bite and other times it makes no difference. I have fished some lakes and you must find the bait to catch fish and other lakes the bait location does not matter. When I can’t figure it out, I believe we just have to wait until we receive enough information on fish and bait to solve the problem but in 20 years someone may have studied the prey-predator relationship in detail on the lakes and we will have the information to make educated decisions.
Bait can be tightly packed schools, tiny fry or finger size minnows of all species.
This example demonstrates what I call larger baitfish in a school. This photo is from Chris Meyer’s collection. Notice how the DownScan and side scan separate the targets better than the traditional sonar, even with the Broadband technology Lowrance uses.
The next example has massive bait balls over 40 FOW. I have looked at bait balls for years with traditional sonar and the bait balls on the DownScan are easier to interpret.
This screen capture is panfish around a sunken ice fishing house. The arrows point to the same baitfish with the different sonar views.
This screen capture is panfish around a sunken ice fishing house. The arrows point to the same baitfish with the different sonar views.
