A NEW SONAR WITH EVERY UPDATE
Summer can be a difficult time when it comes to our fishing. Whilst the fish will be active drifting around the lake in the midday sun, they can be hard to catch with the heat playing a big factor in catch rates.
They may have already been caught at least once during the spring and when they start to think about spawning then they can become uninterested in feeding for long periods of time and instead just pick up the odd food item as they travel around the lake. It’s a wonder how we ever catch anything in the height of summer!
But one plan of attack that has stood me in good stead during summer is to find the areas, and spots within those areas, that the fish visit when they do decide to feed. By doing my homework I can ensure that I’m in prime position with the chance of a bite or two.
Our greatest asset is our eyes but as we can’t see through water we have to use the tools at our dis- posal. Whilst I have used a marker rod and float in the past I prefer nowadays to use a bare lead and cast around likely looking areas until I get the desired feel of the lead hitting the bottom that I am looking for to position my hookbait on. This can be a lengthy process in a swim that you know nothing about with varying depths and lakebed types such as weed and silt. To save time and keep disturbance to a minimum I have started using the Deeper Pro+ to give me a better understanding of the topography of the swim. I don’t always use the Deeper but have found myself using it more and more if I don’t know the swim I’m fishing rather than thrashing the water to a foam with a marker or lead. It’s easy to cast one of these to likely looking areas and slowly retrieve whilst watching my phone screen for what I’m looking for. It also records the whole thing on my smartphone as a record to examine if I need to at a later date which I find extremely useful.
Once I’ve found a likely area it is then so much easier to cast my bare lead and find that nice spot to position my rods onto knowing that I am fishing confidently. The Deeper will never replace watercraft but it certainly goes some way to finding those spots quicker and more efficiently. Like anything in our fishing if a tool we use makes our fishing more streamlined and increases our confidence, then it’s going to have a place in my tackle box. It’s difficult enough to catch on some of the hard waters that I fish and any help is a step closer to my next bite.
Deeper Pro Member Leon Bartropp www.deepersonar.com