Sitting in the bar on the Stena Discovery bound for Ireland in June, my companion on the trip commented that he had noticed in my car that I had included in my tackle a Hummingbird fish finder. He enquired if I was planning to fish for pike, adding that he associated this equipment with that particular species as it appeared that a large percentage of pike anglers carry them, particularly those who fish from boats. He and I both live in Norfolk and a lot of our pike fishing is likely to be from a boat!
His next question was whether I had or was intending to, hire a boat during our trip, to which I replied ‘no’! No, I had no specific plans to fish for pike, save that the opportunity presented itself and could not be ignored and no, I had not booked a boat and was not intending going afloat on this trip. Well why take a fish finder to Ireland came his reply? My reply was for him to wait and see and that I would expect him to express his thanks that I did on the return journey here in the bar! You don't have to wait as long as a few paragraphs from here you will learn why I had packed the Hummingbird.
Picking up on the comment and reference to the large number of pike anglers using fish finders, like I guess many specimen hunters of various disciplines do, I set to wondering whether each of them, you included if you already own one, get the maximum use and return for your investment. Without doubt these devices are extremely expensive accepting that they get used for a couple of hours a trip or even a year compared to a rod and reel that will likely see constant use. Perhaps those of you who have yet to experience what a fish finder/echo sounder/sonar can tell you about a water you fish will identify perhaps with the merit of such an investment once you have read this article and if not as an individual but with a group of friends, purchase such an essential piece of fishing tackle!
Looking back at how and why I ventured to purchase my first echo sounder it seems so long ago and comparing my first to how sophisticated equipment has become today it seems it belonged in the arc! To bring value to what I am going to say, I really need to recover events that have occurred over the years which led me to be in a position to be writing this article. I hope that you will stick with me through this as I am sure you will have a much deeper appreciation of what the subject is and how it can possibly change your fortunes in terms of placing baits in the right swim. I am careful not to suggest that it will catch you more or bigger fish as whilst it may lead you to the fish it will be for you to exploit the opportunity and choose the right method etc. to put one or more fish on the bank!
Much of what I needed to know back then is much of what we all still want to know, but as you will discover by the end of this article you can and will get more from such equipment.
Looking back.
In those seemingly far off, distant days the only types available at reasonable cost and which were reasonably practical and portable were the type which utilized a spinning, glowing LED to indicate a flashing image on a round, depth scaled face. Whilst these did not use highly sophisticated and explicit graphic displays to show the bottom and whatever else might be between the transducer and the lake bed, they did provide a means of accurate reporting of the depth. Initially for me this was the prime purpose, to identify depth, features like drop off's and bars etc. which might be the haunts of any target species, in this particular case pike, so places where fry and prey fish might be found were important on large venues, to help reduce wasted fishing time!
Whilst not so sophisticated as the current liquid crystal displays we have today on ‘depth finders’, these early sounders were designed to just tell the depth and no more, it was down to us as users to come to terms with what that spinning LED was telling us. The technology in the transducer and the basic electronics were very sensitive and this relayed the information fed back from the sonar pulses by pulsing and flashing the LED at various brightness' and lengths of time to give indications of not just the depth, but of weed beds, fish and bottom type, hard gravel or silt. Those who learned to read this information were soon able to improve their results by fishing the areas most likely to produce.
My need to have such information was brought about by my need to know more about the large waters I was then fishing and more importantly to help me locate features my quarry might frequent and thereby allow baits to be presented in areas I felt might produce results.
This was made more important by the fact that some of the waters I was fishing were large and some I wished to fish were even larger and all involved the use of a boat. The size and depth of these waters, primarily reservoirs, were vast and variable in both terms.
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