Willard still kicking out some decent perch

[wiperhunter2]

Once you found the school, did you sit on top of them and jig, or keep circling with the trolled fligs? That's a nice group of fish, how do you recognize them from other fish?  Is it size of mark or grouping pattern?  I wish I had taken pictures of the indications I was seeing so I could compare... Most of the ones I seen were spaced further apart and pointing mostly in the same direction... Pat helped point out that they were likely carp and so I'm still trying to figure out the best way to know what I'm looking at... It sure is fun to be able to know things are around you though... After fishing Bear Lake for the whitefish, I'm seeing why most of our deep water fishermen don't have much love for side imaging and mega 360, they are best for shallower water fishing I believe... My SI really didn't help much at Bear Lake, the rocks were so big where the whitefish were spawning that I hardly seen any fish on it, even though I caught a few... I guess they were behind the rocks and not showing up, plus the sudden drop offs just turn into dark voids on the screen.. Still good info to have, but not nearly as useful as it is on shallower lakes with more consistent bottoms.. Anyway thanks Curt for posting the SI, I really appreciate that... And great job on another great haul from Willard... Later Jeff

We rarely jig at Willard, you can cover more area and we think catch more perch while slow trolling fligs, at least most of the time. The way we tell the difference is the shape of the fish and their size, cats and carp usually show up as bigger marks and are longer. We only saw that one big group in the morning and after that they were pretty spread out but we are still looking for that size of marks and once we find an area where they are, we just keep going back a forth. We caught most of those fish yesterday in an area about two to three hundred yards square, when we stopped catching them, we expanded the area but kept coming back to the same central area. Because we fish with Robert so much and have seen his 360 mega in action, I can tell you that you can for sure use it in deeper water and you can see those suspended fish, it just takes practice to know what to do it and learn how to interpret what you are seeing. Keep at it, you will get better and understanding what you are seeing. You might already know this but there are two different marks you will see on the side scan, one image will be the fish, the other image will be the shadow of the fish, you can see it clearly when the fish are close to the bottom but when the fish are suspended that shadow is harder to see.