Page 93 - South Mississippi Living - Ocotber, 2022

information on the screen can watch individual fish swimming around a brush pile, reef or other structure and target that specific lunker in real time.
Unfamiliar with the technology, I found it very confusing at first. A fish observed on the right side of the screen wasn’t necessarily swimming to the right of the boat. Everything depended upon the direction the transducer faced at that moment.
However, pros accustomed to using this technology could easily locate individual fish they want to catch and drop baits almost on their noses. They can toss out a lure and watch as it sinks or runs through the water toward the fish. Then, they
can watch how that fish reacts, or doesn’t react, to their offering. Lucky anglers can even watch a big fish take a bait in real time and set the hook.
Regularly, fish like crappie might only gingerly taste a bait and quickly spit it out. Without looking at it, anglers even using
highly sensitive rods and line might never detect that a strike occurred. Sometimes, anglers get so enthralled with watching the fish on the screen, they forget to set the hook!
What works for crappie can also work for bass, bream, catfish and other fresh or salty species. With such technology, anglers can find unlimited underwater fish havens and possibly locate places few other people know to fish. They can also tell if that structure holds fish at that time or not, what species and their approximate sizes.
Locating whopper fish does not automatically mean catching them. Anglers must still convince those critters to bite their offerings. Often, that takes considerable experimentation to find the right bait for that time.
Several companies make excellent electronic systems. Anglers could spend a fortune, so pick the system that works best for you and your budget.
Kevin McCarley shows off a crappie he caught while using electronics to find fish around flooded timber.
Professional angler uses a spinning rod to flip light jigs to the crappie after his electronics led him to the perfect spot.
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October 2022 | 93
John Harrison and his fresh caught crappie.