Hi people,

As the title says, are fish finders necessary when it comes to fishing a reservior the size of clywedog.
I'm thinking of getting myself one but I'll wait and see what your views are on this.

thank you,

Jonny

destroys the whole art of fly fishing if you ask me. The whole fun is using your knowledge and watercraft to find the fish. Might as well chucka bucket of groundbait over the boat.

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Chris

Gott weiss ich will kein Engel sein

Look i cannot see what is wrong with having a fishfinder it will tell when you are close to fish, it will also tell you what the terrain is like under the water.One thing it will not do is catch fish.

Or tell you what the fish are that you can hopefully see on the screen.

Great entertainment on a hard day!!

Just saying that's what splits fly fishing and bait fishing apart, for me. I don't see the point of a fish finder for fly fishermen. All the hard work, investigating, trial and error, has been taken out the game; all that's left is to lob a fly out and haul them in. You could say the same going to a stock pond, the fish are there, but you still have to catch them. Indeed, but you may as well pick them out of a bucket.

Finding out what the terrain is like, if you need to know, is more fun done manually, gradually deciding what setup to use, then getting it all right and catching them is much more fun than finding it all out by electronics.

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Chris

Gott weiss ich will kein Engel sein

That's a fair point, fishfinders do show if there are fish in the vicinity, bottom structure etc,. but they won't catch you fish.

If you search the forum the topic has been covered extensively before and until they / or if they are, outlawed then why not ?

I don't really use mine for fly fishing and don't know the reservoir in question but there's no doubt they are helpfull on larger waters if only to put you in an area where fish are to be found.

Hope this helps.

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Tight Lines. :)

Complete cobblers. Obviously you have no experience whatsoever using one.

Nothing is as big a misnomer as "fishfinder" and that's why I don't use the term. The idea that you can just cruise around the lake until you "see" fish on the screen and then start hauling them out is completely laughable and you're just revealing your amateur status if you think that's the way they work.

The best use of an LCR is to find the structure that might hold fish. It is highly debatable as to how reliable fishfinders are when it comes to "showing" individual fish, especially if the fish are on the bottom. Then there is the fact that if you run a boat over the top of the fish either with or without an outboard, would they really stay put so you can just drop a rig and start hammering them? As I said, completely laughable, although I make allowances that stocked fish could be stupid enough to simply lay there, but real fish would certainly not let you blast over them at fly fishing depths and stay put.

LCRs are a valuable tool, but even if they did show individual fish to a high degree of reliability (which occasionally happens, but not very often) it's still up to you to figure out how to catch them. More important than finding fish, they can provide a important margin of safety when running at high speeds in rivers and other places where the depth is prone to change from week to week.

Are they useful? Yes. Do they "find fish" and make catching a sure thing? Hell no.

Grouse

Stockiebasher doesn't sound like the name of someone qualified to talk about the 'art' of fly fishing, though I'm not saying your not!
As others have said here, and on previous threads,their use in finding fish is limited, but they are invaluable in finding likely fish holding areas.As Accony says they are great to use on a hard day, to survey your favourite water, and gain a better understanding of it. Even those who have fished the same reservoir for years often only have a vague knowledge of depths, and are totally unaware of underwater features.All their knowledge is limited to how much anchor rope goes out, and perhaps what comes up on the anchor.I don't use my sonar very often on my regular water, as I like to think I've got a decent picture of it, but certainly pack it if I'm having a boat at Rutland, where I don't.
Johnnyboi; no, they're not necessary, but are a useful tool to help you tackle a big water, rather than becoming one of the 'chuck and chance it' brigade.

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Behold the fisherman
He riseth up early and disturbeth the whole household.
MIGHTY ARE HIS PREPARATIONS!
He goeth forth full of hope and when the day is far spent he returneth
Smelling of strong drink, and the truth is not in him

Makes one wonder about the level of 'knowledge and watercraft' some of our eminent posters have.

Are 'fishfinders' necessary? No ... but they're a damn sight quicker and more accurate as an aid to establishing depth and profile than a lump of lead on a string, feeling for the bottom with your rod tip or sweating over maps of the area before the water was created.

'Fishfinder' is a complete misnomer when applied to their use in the majority of trout waters. They're not 'trout finders' and are unable to distinguish between perch, pike, bream or anything else so if anyone thinks they're a short cut to catching trout they're as daft as StockiebashersLtd.

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[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

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Sorry, but thats just pathetic. My username is muddlerman, hardly ever fish a muddler, my mate on here blobby, dont fish a blob. Come on you can do better than that.

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i was walking far from home, where the names are not burned along the wall, saw a building, high as heaven, but the door was so small