StructureScan for the Surfcaster

I very rarely get the opportunity to target striped bass from a boat, so when Lowrance Pro Staff member Captain Jimmy Auld invited me out to fish light tackle for schoolie bass as well as check out the Lowrance StructureScan and SideScan in action, I jumped at the opportunity.

At the launch, we were met with dense fog and hardly any visibility, but Jimmy said we could navigate it. Peering into his HDS-8 unit, we navigated out of the harbor, and before long we could hear the screeches of terns and splashes of feeding bass, even though we couldn’t quite see them.

After catching a few fish to about 32 inches on weightless Slug-Go’s, Jimmy gave me a tutorial on the StructureScan unit. I asked if we could tuck into the shoreline of an area I occasionally fish on foot. While I’d seen the StructureScan in Demo mode at trade shows before, seeing in such great detail an area I’d fished before was pretty cool.

We drove near one spot I’ve fished where, although I’ve had very little luck there, always looked like it held great potential to produce because of a killer rip that formed when the tide was running. When we passed over, the StructureScan confirmed that the area did in fact hold fish, dozens of them, that showed up like small arcs on the blue screen. They were holding tight to a serious drop-off that went from 20 to over 40 feet of water.

 

It’s no wonder I’d never caught fish there. Any of my offerings would have gone flying by the fish 20 feet over their heads. On the way in, Jimmy switched on the SideScan feature and we found a couple more promising areas within casting distance of shore, the most exciting of which was a sedan-sized boulder that must hold a cow bass or two when the tide is running.

After a fun morning on the water, Jimmy and I hatched a plan to take a leisurely cruise through the Cape Cod Canal with the SideScan running and a notebook in hand to see if we can’t find any “secret” spots even the most experienced “Canal Rats” don’t know about.