Over many years I have devoted a lot of
time and research into what separates the consistently successful
fishermen from the not so successful. One factor that pops up
time and again is curiosity. All the great fishermen I know have
an insatiable curiosity about things fishy.
These fishermen have learned that taking things
at face value will not provide answers to fishing’s many
questions. Perhaps a pertinent illustration of this is the widespread
misuse of sounders.
Sounders are one technological advance that can
help clear the watery fog that separates man from fish. We now
have a device that can feed our curiosity about what is going
on below us. But too often sounders are used in ways that do little
to increase the chances of catching fish. In fact very often they
may even restrict the time and chances available to find fish.
Just motoring around any old where with the sounder
turned on is a waste of time and effort. Sure you might luck-out
and find a pod of fish or some structure that may hold fish, but
this is Lotto fishing. If you have not explored the charts of
your fishing area to determine likely fish holding structure before
turning on the sounder you are often just burning petrol and productive
fishing time.
Obvious stuff, maybe, because it is not just what
happens when a piece of structure is found in a likely area that
separates the great from the good.
A small story to light the way ahead. I was on a
trip with Bruce
Smith on ‘Striker’ out of the Bay of Islands some
years ago. We had been searching for some kingis with little success,
when Bruce decided to have a look at an area that some reports
indicated held fish.
As we neared the area we were not too hopeful –
the bottom remained flat a featureless, and nothing on the charts
indicated anything worth a peek. We were beginning to suspect
that the reports were a hoax. Then we began to notice the bottom
gradually inclining upward and some signs of rock and weed. Still
there were no sharp rises that would indicate anything that might
hold concentrations of fish. Suddenly the sounder line arched
upwards from the bottom 60 metres below to just 30 metres below
the boat. As suddenly as it rose it fell away again. A pinnacle
that was the stuff of fishing dreams.
We were all ready to back track, drop the pick,
and get into them. Not "blimmin" Bruce. Despite our
grumbling he motored around the area and made a couple of passes
near the first found pinnacle from different angles, concentrating
intently on the image on the sounder screen. It was then we learned
our lesson.
On one of the different-angled approaches we saw
that we had only shaved the side of the structure and in fact
the reef rose to 20 metres below the surface. The area around
this higher point was covered in fish. Now we could set about
determining the best drift angle to take advantage of what Bruce
had found. We caught fish.
The lesson we learned from Bruce was simple; what
you see on a sounder is not necessarily what there is to see.
We may well have fished over the first seen point and may even
have caught some fish, but for the sake of a wee bit more exploration,
and a large dollop of curiosity, we would have missed the real
action.
The lesson did not stop there. When we finished
fishing, Bruce made three or four big sweeps around the area in
ever increasing circles. It is unusual to find pinnacles and steep
reefs apparently in the middle of nowhere without these pinnacles
and reefs forming part of a wider overall structure. These sweeps
confirmed that indeed the pinnacles we found were part of a wider
system. I know that Bruce explored the area more thoroughly on
subsequent trips.
In the illustrations that accompany this article
I have attempted to show what can be revealed when a few passes
from different directions are made. The top illustration shows
the bottom topography. The illustrations below show the resultant
graph you should see on the sounder crossing the structure in
the direction of the various arrows.
I hope this will show that just one pass over a piece of new territory
may give a false picture of the actual shape of the structure.
Not only is it a false picture, but also it is a
picture that may disguise the true potential of an area. In fact
looking at the different charts separately could convince you
that these were not graphs from the same piece of reef.
Sometimes there can be a problem in relocating the
reef, especially if there is a wind or strong current. If you
can afford a GPS a quick tap on the event or mark button will
get you back where you were. So will one of the new marker buoys
that you drop over the side as you pass over likely territory.
A sheet of newspaper dropped on the water works as an efficient
marker, as does a squirt of vegetable oil.
Because once you have identified the prime spot
to fish, setting up a good drift line or dropping the anchor in
the right spot is the next problem.