speeedman

I do not agree with the leverage theory due to the problem also exists with meat rigs which has little leverage available. Could it be that the fish are never hooked well enough to be fought to the boat? If the fish is hooked deep normally the fish is landed. Fish not hooked so well that make it to the boat have many hooks drop in the net. I dont believe the fish see close up very well and have trouble sometimes actualling inhaling the bait. If a fish is not hooked deep, and it is in 50+ fow thrashing and rolling violently, it could easily pull the hook, espicailly if there is a 200lb man pulling on the other end of a 300' core. How many of these fish are actually hooked on the outside of their mouths. One day the fish are hungry and hammering the baits deep, you land a lot of them, next day fish are not so hungry, front moved in, whatever, the fish are slapping at the baits, maybe the fish hit the bait a little from the side and is hooked more on the side of the mouth our head for that matter. You see it all the time with small spring coho's with fisherman using spoons that are a bit to big, jointed rapalas hook more in the mouth due to them running more true. If a bait is hit from the side like many (maybe most) are, it will be very difficult to hook the fish deep past the joint of its mouth. If you are lucky it will lodge right in the joint. If he hits the bait from the back and the bait gets deep where you have to look to see the hook is then you have hooked him deep and most likely will land him. I lose just as many fish on meat rigs as spoons but the fish caught on meat seem to be hooked deeper more oftern. Try smaller baits and keep them slow as you can when they wont stay hooked. Otherwise hope for hungry fish.

I lost a meat rig and Capt John flasher because of the ring breaking - not happy about that - I dont think a fish even hit it - reeled it in at the end of the day and all was gone - kinda funny looking just the diver on the end of the line, it was a purple diver and looked more like a space ship on the line since there was nothing behind it lol . I am laughing now but not that day. I must have trolled for 2 hrs with it. Other wise the deeper diver worked fine, I will be changing the screw on it though, just plain dont care for the phillips head.

GLF I must apoligize for spelling your name wrong. GFL is in my head - GFL stands for Ganus Family Lofts - World famous racing pigeons, I have some of his birds. They are on the Indiana/Michigan border, some birds he sells go for more than a new 35' footer lol, not the ones I have. Sorry for my mistake. Steve

First I want to say the pic from GFL looks to me like the gain/sensitivity is set correct - if anything it could use a tick more - sometimes i will deal with some surface clutter for more gain - for a 15lb salmon you dont need alot of gain - for perch close to the bottom- more is better, or for seeing the thermocline, or if your looking for baitfish that are not in a huge ball/ i.e. loosely scattered - as per the question by Salmonquest GFL's unit does not look to be at 100% gain. You should not need 100% gain. Most screens would have way to much clutter to see anything. What I do see on the pic is the dark blotchy marks around the fish in the center of the screen. Also scattered blotchy marks elsewhere on the screen. I dont know for sure what it is, but my lawrance set on auto will not have a lot of that for a while then when the screen gets real dark, more so than GFL's pic, we smile. Seems fish like it. Could be a bunch of water fleas, temp change or loosely schooled bait, what ever we like it. When the screen gets dark like that continually its like someone turned the gain full bore. We will make a few passes through that stuff. GFL's pic has little surface clutter meaning the gain is not to awful high but does show the blotchy stuff meaning it is high enough to show the detail you want to see. Fish symbols - do not use this feature ever, the only time you should is in weeds to seperate weeds from fish - that is what the manufacures say- my opinion - you better really know your sonar before you can tell the diffrence because I believe weeds will also show as fish symbols, not to mention air bubbles and crap suspended in the water. I have seen thousands of fish in fish mode, never caught one, the fish I seen with arches, well atleast I caught a few. You will never see a fish symbol come up to your bait, you will see arches come up and sometimes a pole goes off. Gain/sensitivity - the older units you had to shut off the fish symbols and turn the gain up manaully to really use one correctly. The new units you can shut off the fish symbols and still be in auto mode for the gain, in auto the sonar will work very good as far as gain is concerned, especially on shallower water 40 or less but still works fine deeper. I fish no deeper than 90'. I try to turn my gain up 2 or 3 notches? If i go more I get to much surface clutter. I would say it is close to 90% but I would have to look to be sure. If I am busy setting poles or whatever and forget to adjust it up, I dont worry about it. Thermocline shows well in auto or with it turned up, at up to the depth of 90' and more I am sure. The older units that you have to shut off the fish symbol and go to manual you will almost for sure have to turn up the gain to see it. My 4 cents worth. Hope it helps.