(Editor's note: The following is the fifth in a series of fishing tips presented by The Bass University. Check back each Friday for a new tip.)
Tennessee pro Ott DeFoe bought his first GPS unit in 2003, right before his first trip to monstrous Lake Okeechobee, largely because he “didn’t want to be gator food.”
Thirteen years and dozens of tournaments later, he’s fully embraced the advantages that technology offers the modern angler. The Humminbird units that he runs on his Nitro have both GPS capabilities and traditional two-dimensional sonar, but he also has side-imaging, down-imaging and the 360-degree imaging capabilities. You may not need all of those, but get as many as you think you’ll use, and purchase the largest screen that you can afford.
Unlike most anglers, if you have differently sized electronics on your boat, DeFoe recommends that you put the larger one at the bow and the smaller one at the console. The console unit will never be more than 18 inches or so from your face while driving, whereas when you’re fishing, you’ll be a greater distance from your floor-mounted electronics, making that extra detail critical. Also, even if your two units share waypoints, they should each have their own transducer and their own GPS antenna, to ensure maximum precision and accuracy of what you’re seeing.
Even within a given manufacturer, no two electronics units will be the same, so it’s critical to “mess around with stuff. Turn things on, then turn things off” until you figure out what works best for you.
On his side-imaging, DeFoe typically sets his sensitivity around 12 or 13 to start, uses the brown palettes, and turns his contrast up to 11 or 12, which “makes stuff pop just a little bit more.” The vast majority of the time, he’ll set his range from 75 to 100 feet, which provides maximum balance of distance and detail, although he cautioned that anglers with smaller-screen electronics might want to go for a smaller spread to maximize detail
Transducer placement varies from boat to boat and angler to angler as well. Your goal is to get it as low as you can, in the cleanest possible water, but if you fish a lot of stumps and timber and drag your boat through the nasty stuff, you’ll need to put it up a few inches higher to avoid knocking it off. Placement will also indicate your maximum idle speed for receiving decent images – on one boat he couldn’t idle more than 4.5 mph and get a quality picture, while on his next one he could see clear images at 5.5 mph.
With two dimensional sonar, which he calls “hands down the best way to look for fish and to fish for them,” he prefers the original color palette. Over time, you’ll learn to “video game” fish, and turn images on the screen into bodies on the livewell, but again he cautions that each transducer will show things slightly differently. “If you’re like me, and you hit your transducer on the rocks all the time, it’s constantly changing,” he explained.
He refers to the 360 technology as “side imaging for the front of your boat while sitting still,” and it has quickly become a favorite tool. While it can be used while idling, it’s best when fishing. Because the screen is divided into four quadrants, he sets it at 80- or 100-foot range, which makes figuring out the distance he’s viewing in a particular direction extra easy – either 20 or 25 feet. With 360, he prefers the amber palette, which is a lighter version of brown and shows up best in sunlight.
Finally, he encourages anglers to get updated premium chips for their waters – Lakemaster if available. “I haven’t bought a paper map in years,” he concluded.
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