A good fisherman has more hope for success when he also has the right electronic equipment aboard his boat so that he does not fish “in the dark.” Choosing the right instruments requires knowledge or following the advice of an expert-we relied on Garmin Marine‘s technical manager, Simone D’Aiuto. “The first basic tool,” he explained, “is the fishfinder, literally a ‘fish finder.’ It is a system with a display that works in tandem with a transducer that through sending sound pulses to the bottom, transmits a graphic image of the bottom and when there is of the presence of fish. The fishfinder basically indicates data on depth, bottom conformation, and whether there are fish and where they are in relation to the bottom. On the screen each species, or type, of fish then is characterized through a precise graphic signal that most often, in addition to size, is determined by the type of movement. For example Tuna, due to swimming with frequent and very fast depth changes, will be marked on the screen with a kind of letter J.
Fishfinder finds fish for you, that’s how!
The major difference between different fishfinders is the power and the type of transducer: in fact, this can be stern-mounted, inboard, or through-mounted, depending on the type of boat and fishing technique, and especially depending on the different types of frequencies it uses. In fact, the instrument, depending on its power, can work with sound pulses on various frequency levels. The tall ones are ideal for fishing with a very good level of detail and at depths that are not very great, within or just over 100 meters, as in the case of inshore trolling or medium-light bolentino. For example, Garmin’s ECHOMAP Plus 72 SV and 92 SV are part of this family. In contrast, low frequencies are ideal for sounding very high depths, even up to 1,000 meters, but with a lower level of detail. These are the features required, for example, in deep sea fishing using 1 KW power probes, such as the GPSMAP xs or xsv series. If one wants more versatile and complete instrumentation on board then it is necessary to complement the fishfinder with a chartplotter, thus taking advantage of all the useful bathymetric information in the cartography. To think that electronics replace the fisherman is perhaps too much, but certainly having the right equipment on board simplifies life and brings one closer to the prey with more assurance. Of course, the bait also plays its crucial part as does the angler’s technique in choosing the right coloration of an artificial or in presenting a live or dead natural bait as naturally as possible. Have a good time.”
