Cold Lake Shallow Water Bite

[Weavster]

Theres no better way to start the season then getting on the shallow water jig bite for a few lake trout. The water temps are still cold and the lake trout are still wandering the shallows feeding aggressively. We spent most are time on the top side of the ledges on a gradual sloped feeding shelf before it steeply dropped off to the main lake basin. This shelf was holding a ton of bait and the fish that were utilizing it were aggressive. Don't be scared to move around and rely on your electronics as you never know what you will stumble across! Jigging is one of my favourite ways to zone in and target these aggressive bites. Hope you all enjoy

https://youtu.be/8FdI5eeiKWk

[EZM]

Good video - looks like one of those hot fishing days on Cold Lake we all love ......

[58thecat]

Well done Matt....gotta luv those calm days with a little sunshine:sHa_shakeshout:

[cube]

Nicely Done!

Thanks for the post

[RACKER]

You hauled in alot of nice fish.A great video to show how good electronics can really be so helpful in your catch rates.Very informative for me that has never fished for lakers before.Best of luck on your next outing.

[fish99]

good to know what depth they are at thanks ,
will be a good place to start looking next week .

[Weavster]

Good video - looks like one of those hot fishing days on Cold Lake we all love ......

Sometimes the weather and the fishing all come together!

Well done Matt....gotta luv those calm days with a little sunshine:sHa_shakeshout:

Doesn’t seem like it happens to often this year so far

Nicely Done!
Thanks for the post

Thanks glad you enjoyed
Tight lines

[Weavster]

You hauled in alot of nice fish.A great video to show how good electronics can really be so helpful in your catch rates.Very informative for me that has never fished for lakers before.Best of luck on your next outing.

Good luck if you make it up laker fishing Racker. It’s a blast and addicting as well

good to know what depth they are at thanks ,
will be a good place to start looking next week .

Those fish can be anywhere but once you find the bait you will narrow down the search

[fish99]

Good luck if you make it up laker fishing Racker. It’s a blast and addicting as well



Those fish can be anywhere but once you find the bait you will narrow down the search

my eyes will be glued to the fish finder looking for bait.
thanks again .

[AK47]

Those fish can be anywhere but once you find the bait you will narrow down the search


Sorry for dumb question but can you explain how to look for bait on fishfinder? Do you increase sensitivity setting to pick up smaller fish?

[-JR-]

First of all shut off your fish ID . Then turn up your sensitivity until you can see a heavy led hook under your boat The deeper the better and let your hook down under the transducer not on the side of your boat as the sonar foot print might only be 2 feet wide in shallow water. And jig your hook ,it will sense better then.

This will even work with a cheep $150 sonar ,as i found out back in 1990
pm me your e mail i can send you a picture of sonar at 80 ft down

[Coiloil37]

Sorry for dumb question but can you explain how to look for bait on fishfinder? Do you increase sensitivity setting to pick up smaller fish?


Yes all of your settings are relevant. Starting with the install of your transducer and ending with the settings on the unit it’ll all matter. Assuming your installed correctly and running a decent unit with the settings somewhere close to optimal bait looks like the following pictures. Depending on your colour palette it’ll change if it’s spread out or balled up from being under attack. On my screen red/black are denser returns, light returns are yellow and green.

A chirp return looks different to non chirp 2d as well.


There is a marlin to the left of this bait ball.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210618/3616fe657831d8167d0b6f1ea1573caa.jpg



Another fish on the right side of this bait

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210618/fb66b97fc7609057f733ac98dc6c09d1.jpg

Small smattering of bait on the bottom

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210618/d07a073d0450617a05cb94a2369d7e3a.jpg



Here you’ve got lots of dense bait and what are probably a few small tuna on the left side near the top of that less dense area shaped like a triangle. I wouldn’t doubt there were other fish in the bait but I can’t see them and there isn’t enough picture to show what’s on the bottom left but they could of been fish too (just under the bait ball and just over the weaker returns right off the bottom on the left side).


https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210618/472be9eb6abe47d059e5257d2e209f92.jpg





These are non chirp 2d returns


https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210618/6c2efc9fcac96aafdbad2b7dc8f7750b.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210618/44d1b26dc3e8ed6bba4bd9fa3d737a39.jpg



https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210618/36b56dd9d402cef762384f2969cbdfdb.jpg

Don’t be confused with the echo when the cone is deflecting over a ledge or rock. It’ll fill in what appears to be bait but isn’t like the pic here on the right side of that rock. There is a marlin on the right though in about 25m of water. If your trolling ledges go up and down then, not along side of them because it’ll give you that echo and make you think there’s bait or fish there. Sorry I don’t have a better pic then this to show it. I rarely take pictures of my sonar.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210618/d7a74bdc2b0a7a27f4ab1af06ec52c81.jpg



Scroll speed can make your returns look short or long but small marks are always thiner, larger fish/marks always thicker. That depends on a few settings, screen size and the water depth but holds true apples to apples. Slowing down helps returns too, most of the time I’m trolling at 6-7 knots so 11-14km and my returns aren’t as easy to read compared to when I slow down to sound out an area.

Don’t confuse it with the thermocline. That will be fairly consistent at a particular depth. I don’t have any great pics of it but it can be seen here in about 40-50m of water. If I was in less water it would be more predominant and on a lake it’s often thinner.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210618/5a7bab2b1d05542f74e670e054527775.jpg


Ryan moody has some very good info if your not well versed at setting up or reading a sounder. His basic course costs you about $20 online.

[AK47]

Thank you, very cool pictures, so those are with fish ID off?
So I have Helix 5 and sensitivity goes from 0 to 20. I assume you would need it in upper range to pick up bait?

[Coiloil37]

Thank you, very cool pictures, so those are with fish ID off?
So I have Helix 5 and sensitivity goes from 0 to 20. I assume you would need it in upper range to pick up bait?


Yes those were fish ID off. I’ve fished with it turned on too. There was a time in my life I drove the boat from the back with the ipilot remote and ran the downriggers, rods etc and couldn’t see the depth the fish were at so I kept it turned on. From 8-10’ away I could see the fish and depth and adjust my lure to suit.

There’s a little bait at 18’ just under that fish and another larger ball down near the bottom right.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210619/0d10a8fb9992efb8336be66d13572584.jpg

Chances are once you gain experience looking at a screen and setting it up you probably won’t use fish ID but regardless of others opinions… you do you, ignore the background noise.


A good rule of thumb for sensitivity (if “auto” isn’t good enough) is to turn it up until the screen is getting cloudy then turn it down until it’s clean enough YOU can see through the clutter. I prefer to have a little clutter left on the screen and just look through it then have the sensitivity so low I might be missing stuff. I run mine on auto though 99% of the time. The depth I’m fishing changes to much in a day for me to be adjusting it and auto works very well on my unit.
It’s been a while since I’ve run a bird but if memory serves you’ve got gain and sensitivity don’t you? Usually you want the filters turned off. You can manually set your range to a minimum of twice the water depth then turn your gain up until you see two bottoms. Say your in 30’ of water, you set the range to 70’ then start turning the gain up until you see the bottom at 30’ and another bottom at 60’. What’s happening is the signal is going from the ducer to the bottom, back to the transducer and then back to the bottom and up again. The signal output is strong enough to make the trip down and back twice. Then set your range back to auto and turn up the sensitivity until the screen shows some noise on it, then turn it down until it’s clean enough you can see through the noise. Then for that depth your in pretty good shape, change the depth to much and those settings are half out the window.

You will have to figure out if humminbirds auto setting on the scroll speed is good enough. To fast and the returns are to short, to slow and your returns are to stretched out.

I typically run my scroll speed on auto if I’m going slow or at anchor. On the troll at 6-7 knots I run mine on 7 and on plane I run it on 10 (max). Here’s a screenshot on plane at 50+ km/h. About all I can see is structure but it’s better then nothing. If my scroll speed was any slower at speed and I drove over a rock or ledge I wouldn’t see much of it.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210619/c0aa7cd8312fbaf775c67494e85b8e7e.jpg


With the questions your asking I would highly recommend Ryan moodys basic sounder skills course.

[Weavster]

Thank you, very cool pictures, so those are with fish ID off?
So I have Helix 5 and sensitivity goes from 0 to 20. I assume you would need it in upper range to pick up bait?

I'll try to show a few of my settings in a future video. Everyone has slightly different preferences for settings and these settings will be slightly different between brands

CoilOil37 did a fantastic job at breaking it down with some great screenshots.