Plenty of Pickerel at Weems

[EMSer]

Set out to night after work for a couple of hours of low effort White Perch catching. The tide was falling and the wind was light. Everything seems perfect and on track. Someone forgot to tell the perch though... As I was casting to the riprap in very perchy looking places, I kept coming up with 12" +/- Pickerel. I am not complaining. It was actually quite fun and surprising. I had forgotten my camera and discovered that a phone is a clumsy tool to try and make work while having a fish on the line

I did finally locate some perch before calling it a night. I saw lots of activity on my FF screen as well, but whatever was down there, wasn't interested in the Super Rooster Tail that had caught everything else. All in all, not a bad day to end the day.

I posted some screen shots of my FF in another thread asking what folks thought I was seeing. I've included them here as well. My interpretation skills are still being honed. Thoughts?

IMG_0240.JPGIMG_0238.JPGIMG_0234.JPGIMG_0233.JPGIMG_0230.jpg

[fishinggod]

i'm no help for assistance on the fish finder, as I still have no clue what I'm looking at either. heck I know mine is reading the wrong depth by far but no clue how to fix that either. but congrats on a good evening of fishing. I cant' wait to get up north and fish all these waters in a few weeks.

[J.A. Veil]

Bruce -

First off, congratulations on the pickerel. They are not commonly caught during the summer in Weems, but will become much more readily available as the weather cools.

For your FF unit, one of the biggest challenges on setting up a FF is to get the sensitivity correctly. If it is set too high, you see lots of marks and blobs (I suspect you are seeing bait clusters or debris with the sensitivity bumped up.) If the sensitivity is set too low, you can go right over fish and not see them. I do not think the marks you see throughout the water column in Weems Creek are larger gamefish (I wish they were!).

You have a Garmin FF unit. I cannot tell you how to adjust the settings. My older Lowrance LMS 527c and my Lowrance HDS 5-Gen 2 both have auto sensitivity settings and manual adjustments to override the auto setting. I recommend that you review the owners manual to learn about the settings.

[EMSer]

Bruce -

First off, congratulations on the pickerel. They are not commonly caught during the summer in Weems, but will become much more readily available as the weather cools.

For your FF unit, one of the biggest challenges on setting up a FF is to get the sensitivity correctly. If it is set too high, you see lots of marks and blobs (I suspect you are seeing bait clusters or debris with the sensitivity bumped up.) If the sensitivity is set too low, you can go right over fish and not see them. I do not think the marks you see throughout the water column in Weems Creek are larger gamefish (I wish they were!).

You have a Garmin FF unit. I cannot tell you how to adjust the settings. My older Lowrance LMS 527c and my Lowrance HDS 5-Gen 2 both have auto sensitivity settings and manual adjustments to override the auto setting. I recommend that you review the owners manual to learn about the settings.

I was thinking the same thing John. I wasn't sure of what I was seeing, but I was pretty confident it couldn't all be fish...I will play with my sensitivity setting next time I am out.

I have another question. At what depth do you typically switch between your higher and lower frequency settings?

[J.A. Veil]

I was thinking the same thing John. I wasn't sure of what I was seeing, but I was pretty confident it couldn't all be fish...I will play with my sensitivity setting next time I am out.

I have another question. At what depth do you typically switch between your higher and lower frequency settings?

I don't bother with it. The transducers on some of my vessels are single frequency -- I can't remember which is which.