Float Tube Fishing in Ireland
Having a really great time fishing from the world's best floating fishing
platform
 Adding sonar to your
float tubeI use sonar in my tube. I have had sonar in it for years. On the very very rare occasion I go out for a few minutes without it, I feel blinded and ineffective as if I am fishing with a broken rod, or with a hook with no bait on it. Get ready to join the float tube navy with underwater eyes. You will be amazed at what it will do for your overall understanding of what lies down there ... and your enjoyment of the sport will be greatly enhanced. Having an electronic sonar unit on board will help you improve your fishing techniques by giving you more information and guiding your presentations. You might not see fish, (sometimes you will) but seeing the bottom where you are fishing allows you to fish better. Very often you will be fishing a certain depth and catch fish. If you have spot that the fish are taking in a limited depth range, use the sonar to stay in the best water. |
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 Which
are the essential sonar features?Each manufacturer has a range of units, each unit has similarities and differences to the others. There are however certain features that you absolutely need. After you have these essentials, you can if you wish, add money to get more features that are nice but optional. The sonar unit should be: Compact and convenient to fit on the tube but not get in the way of fishing. Have a low-ish power consumption such that a small light battery can run it for as long as a fishing session lasts. Have a clear display screen on which depth and structure are visible with adequate detail. Temperature of water included. Optional desirable upgrades: Colour if possible. GPS if possible. Side scan if possible. The upgrades are add-ons that increase the price! If they push the cost too high so you delay buying a sonar, you are hurting your own catches. better to remove a few add-ons off your "features wanted list" and get the unit sooner. It has to be affordable, so you buy it instead of thinking about buying it! The options tend to take your attention away from the necessaries. The essential features your sonar unit should have are: depth display ( figures), visual bottom chart display, and water surface temperature (figures). Look for a compact unit with these features. If you pirk, fish dropshot style, or vertically fish leadhead jigs for fish directly beneath, a higher definition screen (more pixels) that shows individual fish will be advantageous. To get the detail of seeing your lure beneath, and the location of fish relative to it, increase the power over 1000 watts to about 2000 watts, and make sure the transducer is 20 degrees minimum so the cone is wide enough so the lure is in it and gets displayed. Remember however that while fishing shallow water, you cast away from the tube to cover undisturbed fish with a retrieved bait/fly/lure, you are fishing for fish that will never appear on screen due to not being underneath the transducer. Most of the time while fishing from your float tube, you will be fishing in water less than 20 feet deep. Rarely you may venture out into the 30 - 50 feet range. This means that a sonar unit does not need the same power requirement for instance as an ocean fishing boat. As a result you do not need the most powerful sonar unit for tubing, and this allows you to choose from inexpensive units with a power rating between 600 and 2500 watts peak-to-peak. Staying between 600 and 150 watts reduces the battery size required to power it up and makes the tube easier to carry ready for launching. Some brands with good reputation for reliability are Lowrance, Humminbird, Eagle, Northstar, Interphase. Their complexity, power and cost vary. Eagle are like a Lowrance without the unit-to-unit information sharing features. Eagle have a lower power rating than their comparable Lowrance version. You will get longer out of a battery on Eagle, than a Lowrance, but the Lowrance with it's greater power will show tinier details on screen if that is what you want. Humminbird used to be less reliable than Eagle or Lowrance but in recent years and newer units HB seem to have beaten that problem. For size guidelines: a screen with a diagonal measurement of 3 1/2" to 5" seems right on a tube. Humminbird and Interphase are the side looking makes at the moment, if you want that feature. Lowrance Eagle and Northstar are the best and clearest downlooking display at the moment, which is the fundamental feature Cheap units are just that, cheap! They will disappoint you with their performance. Don't fall for the marketing propaganda that says "costs half as much - just as good as xxxx". The Smartcast is an example of a sonar that just about works, but does not have good enough quality to tell you anything about the bottom, just that it is there. A simple weighted plumb line is more effective than these (it allows you to feel the bottom hardness) and costs nothing. The Smartcast is a useful bottom depth device if you don't plumb, and I notice that shore based bank anglers like them. But by now you will realise that serious anglers, afloat on the water, expect much more information than just the depth from a sonar unit. So recognise that there is a quality threshold in these items, and don't "cut-price-yourself" into getting something unsuitable. |
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Most
anglers look at their sonar fishfinder and all they see is the depth. Here are two excellent tutorials for you to read: |
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Is colour worth a bit extra? Does colour give you advantages over black and white while fishing? The answer is - it depends on how you fish. The more you fish for species that swim in mid-water, like roach, surface feeding trout, rudd ... the less colour is necessary. Any big return in mid-water is a fish. The more you fish for fish that live on the bottom, like bigger trout, bream, pike, perch ... the more difficult it becomes to tell what is bottom and weed, and fish. They get mixed up. Lots of practise is needed to figure out a black and white bottom sonar chart, but you can figure it out (with a good unit) because they are different shades of grey. A colour chart plots softer items in one colour (weeds) more solid items in another colour (fish) and the rocky bottom in another different colour. You don't have shades of grey, you have different colours helping your eyes to separate images apart from each other and recognise them. Black and white monochromatic screens do have two unique advantages over colour. They cost less. They are easier to see when intense sunlight is shining directly on the screen (in this situation) colour screens seem to go a bit "gray" and the colour appears to fade. Let your mode of use, and your budget decide. |
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Beam Width
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GPS-Sonar Combo units It can be near impossible to locate a spot 3 metres wide when 600 metres out from the shore on a featureless surface of water. The GPS sonar combo units solve these difficulties and bring some amazing fishing techniques to your fishing toolbox. Marine GPS units are different from handhelds, they have more compatibility with computers and other units to exchange information. A handheld GPS - while it gives location - might not have all the features you need, unless it can "talk" with the sonar. These are covered under "Making fishing maps" |
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Sidefinders & sidescans vs
conventional sonar A "side finding" sonar can help locate fish holding off the bottom near a shoreline. This is useful if you are casting towards the shoreline from a position out in the lake. This would be a major help for fishing for rudd in particular. They are also good for spotting trout patrolling along the shallows looking for a meal. their bottom display is of lower quality than other types. The Humminbird-Bottomline Fishing Buddy will provide this sort of information. You can be finning along, "see" a couple of fish 30 or 40 feet to the side of the tube, turn and cast a fly out the approximate distance, and get a quick take resulting in a hooked trout. With no sidefinder, unless they make a rise (were you looking at the water or the sonar?) would you know the fish was there? The Fishing Buddy units are liable to also show other "stuff" that is not fish at the same time, especially when looking into the shallows. So a little study at interpretation helps.
For a flyfisher in shallow water, seeing
fish beneath the tube isn't so useful apart from knowing the depth and
water temperature. Flyfishing with floating line is lateral not vertical
so the features of side looking sonar units are attractive to fly fishing
float tubers.
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The transducer mount Your transducer (xducer) must be facing downwards, and held steady if the sonar is to show the bottom correctly. Try to get the handiest type of transducer when purchasing your sonar unit. There are xducers designed to be glued inside a boat hull, sending their signal through the hull, they look shoe-shape rather like a mini travel clothes iron. Others types are designed to stick on the outside of a boat like a limpet mine. They are vulnerable to being knocked by rocks and damaged. A third type of xducer is designed to bolt onto the transom (rear) of a boat in front of the outboard motor - and this is the handiest type to get for a float tube. The L-shaped transom mounting bracket included is ideal for bolting onto a home made float tube mount. The Lowrance
"Skimmer" transducer is of this type and is very handy for mounting
sonar on a tube. It comes with mounting brackets that allow you to
secure it to an aluminium strip or tube, wood dowel, PVC, golf club handle or
old landing net handle or a section of broken fishing rod. Next position
it so as to have the sonar beam
pointing vertically down. Bungee cord is great for doing this, low
cost and easily available. Take a look at the xducer (right) on my float
tube. Once the tube is afloat I simply push it into a vertical position
ready for use. |
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Batteries
& Chargers - Powering it up There is an alternative option to the SLA. This is the smaller, more compact, lighter and faster charging modellers RC battery. Not the kind you get in an electric car with 6 or 7 individual cells in the pack. You need to get a 10 cell pack which will have the desired 12 volt rating. Easier to carry, can be recharged in 1/2 hour, smaller to fit in your tube pockets. What is the catch? It will cost you more than the standard SLA. For a full description of the use of batteries in float tubes go here: Power Afloat - Float Tube Batteries, and Battery Alternatives |
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