Pro Tips for Scanning Bass

During late summer I have mostly found that the best areas to start your search are along river channels and drop-offs that are in the vicinity of shallow water. A good starting point is to map area of interest using Autochart, which will assist you in focussing on likely areas. Once you have made a decent map of the underwater terrain on your unit you are already half way there, and then you can scan your chosen area with side scan sonar and select specific areas to investigate. Image: Lowrance.com Sides Imaging Setup and Use If I am unfamiliar with my chosen fishing area, I will use side imaging (SI) with a relatively wide range (100ft left and right of the boat) to scan along my predetermined route and mark specific structure that I am interested in. If you know the area well then I suggest reducing the range down to about 60ft left and right of the boat as this will give you much better target separation, and you will see more clearly what you are looking at, especially if your unit has Mega Imaging. Personally I prefer to use SI from my console mounted unit and most often in combination with Down Imaging (DI) using a split screen, marking the interesting places as I go along. I most commonly choose the Amber 2 colour palette on my Humminbird unit, but if its early in the day or really overcast I often change over to the blue colour palette. It will be necessary to constantly adapt your sensitivity and contrast settings to optimise your screen image across different environmental conditions. If I am unfamiliar with my chosen fishing area, I will use side imaging (SI) with a relatively wide range (100ft left and right of the boat) to scan along my predetermined route and mark specific structure. Down Imaging / 2D Sonar For waypoints in water deeper than 8-10ft my approach is to slowly drive the boat over the spot with my unit screen split between regular sonar, Down Imaging and GPS. What I am looking for at this stage are any congregations of bait and/or bass. If I don’t see any bass on the DI and regular sonar then I generally don’t fish the spot unless I’m expecting them to arrive due to a high presence of baitfish, and I’ll move on to the next spot. As far as settings are concerned I prefer the Original palette for 2D sonar at 200kHz and Amber 2 for DI. You can play with the kHz frequency on the traditional sonar (usually between 83 kHz and 200 kHz), keeping in mind that the higher the sonar frequency, the smaller the area you will be scanning under the boat. You would be surprised at how much more you can resolve what you are looking at by having these two sonar images side by side. The faster that you travel over the area of interest, the faster you should have your screen scroll speed setting in order to make sure that the image that you are looking at is recent and close behind the boat. https://youtu.be/vXNWb-oh2fk?t=9m20s Protea angler Neels Beneke showing his approach to a rockpile that delivered his new PB. 360 Imaging Having identified specific areas that are known to hold fish, it is time to get up front and operate with your bow mounted 360 Imaging equipment. Simply put, the 360 transducer is a rotating SI transducer, but instead of scrolling from top to bottom it scrolls in a circle, thus creating a circular image of everything around the boat. If you understand SI properly then it won’t take long for you to understand what you are looking at. Chances are that if you are struggling to work out what you are looking at on your screen, your settings are likely not ideally setup. Time on the water, as always, is invaluable and you will learn how to enhance your image, the setup of which requires changing with various environmental conditions. I almost exclusively rely on my 360 Imaging when in water less than 20ft deep; ideally you want your biggest bow screen to have the 360 image on it and a smaller unit for your GPS and map image. A sweep on 360 enables you to make waypoints as you go, so you can spot lock and target the same structure repeatedly. Most obviously the 360 enables you to see what is in front of you long before you get to it and it gives you a clear indication of what exactly you are coming onto. Even with waypoints, you are unlikely to always remember exactly what you are looking at and from which angle to best approach the spot. I often make a slow loop around the spot from about 20-30 ft away and can make specific casts to where I would expect to find fish. There is nothing worse than driving right over the best part of your laydown, rock pile or an unknown stump before you have had the chance to make a few casts at it. I also find the 360 very useful for looking for bass on beds as its very easy to see the beds, and once you get the hang of things you will be able to see if there is actually a fish on it. 360 Imaging gives you the ability to direct casts along a submerged weedline or brush pile targeting the productive areas. Once you understand what you are looking at you can move along a ridge or grassline and it is simple to see in which exact direction you need to cast. Often in areas that I regularly fish I come across something new such as irregularities in a grass line or small rockpile that I would never have noticed without the 360. Protea angler Neels Beneke uses 360 to identify grasslines and rocks ahead of the boat. If you are fishing a specific spot you can line yourself up correctly based on the wind etc and then anchor your Ultrex on spot lock and really work the area efficiently. In this situation I change the view from the 360 to just focus on the front half of the image which will give you a bigger picture and more recent refresh rate. As with all other sonar, the faster you move along the bank on your trolling motor, the faster you will need to set the rotation of the 360 transducer but you will lose some of the resolution. If you are on anchor you can slow it right down to the point that you will notice specific fish moving around between sweeps. It takes a bit of practice to identify individual fish, but once you have your settings right you will save a lot of time on wasted casts that aren’t on target. The range rings will also give you a clear idea of just how far you are from your target and you can cast very accurately to the fish you are targeting. I find the 360 particularly useful for following bait balls, and down in the Cape we find that moving shoals of Gilchristella (Estuarine round herring) attract roving packs of bass and these are easy to follow using the 360 image. I most commonly use the Amber 2 colour palette on my unit and set the range to no more than 45ft away as this gives you plenty time to make those important casts be-fore you happen upon your spot! This 360 technology is a game changer and I believe that anyone without it is at a distinct disadvantage - I now find myself struggling to fish effectively off other peoples boats when they don’t have one! The proof is in the catching, Neels with his 5,1kg PB taken while using 360 Imaging on Midmar Dam. GUY’S OPTIMAL SONAR SETTINGSSIDE IMAGING100ft to either side of the boat for long range scanning and 60ft range for detailed scanning. Use Amber 2 colour pallet for bright conditions and blue for low light. DOWN IMAGING & 2D SonarFor targets deeper than 10ft he recommends the standard 2D colour pallet and Amber 2 for Down Imaging. 2D is run at 83khz for shallow water and 200khz for deeper water. 360 IMAGING When fishing shallower than 20ft, Guy utilises the 455khz 360 Imaging at a max range of 50ft in either Amber 2 or the grayscale colour pallet.