Location: 31 | Thuawk - 7/27/2017 2:21 PM
So in another thread just started, some fellas were talking about marking muskies on the sonar then and almost being able to call out which line was going to get hit. I have a solix 15 amd a onix 10 pretty high end units. And dont really know if I have ever been able to indentify a musky. The lake I fish has quite a bit of forage and I mark a hell of alot of fish. But not sure I would be able to say "oh there's a musky" the people that say that they can... Are yiu using si/di/2d sonar? And I take it that yiu are just using the size of the mark as yiur reference? Which my be very difficult in water with big northerns too!! Hahaha any way if someone could chime in would be great. Any screen shots would be awesome too
Here’s a couple lousy pictures I took with my cell phone from my Lowrance structure scan yesterday while trolling… very poor resolution with the picture of a smeared picture in bright sun.
For me; suspended open water fish are the easiest to identify with the side scan, but that doesn't mean you can ever be sure what type of fish it is… or if it will bite. I would say there's no way to be 100% sure unless you can see them both simultaneously... which we have. For instance; is the fish in the Helix 12 image a muskie or a pike? (Very cool/crisp image)
Speaking from experience; over the years we have developed a pretty good confidence level spotting 45+” muskies. We've seen them on the screen just before the rod goes off many times, and it's always helpful to be even more ready. With that said; it's not everyday that we see one on the side scan and then it hits, but sometimes seeing enough of them gets us to switch things up, stay around, or be more willing to return... or not.
Being very intimate with the water and knowing what lives there (or more importantly doesn't live there) is the first step in identifying a muskie with SS.
When we fish water that contains a lot of sturgeon/rough fish the confidence level drops significantly even though we can identify the larger sturgeon by the taper versus an esox, there's just too many targets with good sized sturgeon about. BTW, you would be able to make out the fins on that large sturgeon image much better in person.
With that said; a 45” class muskie on SS resembles the proportions of your finger to scale. It really helps to identify the "targets" when they are higher up so you can see their shadow, like the Helix. If the system/area does not contain Sturgeon (or large pike) and looks like the arrow fish, I would suspect it is a 40”class muskie. The large carp is circled, and there is a smaller sturgeon on the left side of that same image on the 30' line.
SS has been a game changer in my boat... hope it helps yours!
Edited by Jerry Newman 8/23/2017 2:44 PM
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