Do you catch more fish with a fish finder?

Fished for seven years out of my Trident 4.3 without a fish finder.  Is it too obvious a question to ask how you use them?  When trolling down a coastal river if you see fish symbols do you turn around and make runs against the tide whereas otherwise you would just keep going?  Do you use it for depth adjustments rather than just occasionally hitting bottom and then reeling in a few feet?  I see a lot on the river without a screen to look at but am I catching fewer fish?

I think I caught more fish before the fish finder. Seeing the fish on the screen gives one hope, though. I think they are useful for locating structure or avoiding snags by seeing the structure or other obstacles in advance when you are trolling. I've used mine to advantage while jigging for kokanee by being able to locate a school in a great big lake.

I mostly agree with C_Run.  A fish finder is not typically necessary and can sometimes be a hindrance if you're just chasing marks on the screen. 

However, I do believe it's helped over the years.  If nothing else it helps avoid snags and find structure. The longer you've got your gear in the water working correctly the more chance you have to hook something.

There are many variables that dictate if sonar will actually help with the "fish" part of fishing.  If you primarily fish in water 10' or less then a traditional sonar isn't going to offer too much advantage as your viewing window is pretty small.  Deeper water is where it can be very helpful.  But, you also have to know how to use/read your sonar as well.  I find many people I know don't want to learn how to properly use a fish finder.  They pull it out of the box and expect the default settings to be all they need to know.

I routinely fish a large lake for Cutthroat/kokanee and I can honestly say that, unless the fish are in the top 5' of the water column, then if I'm not marking fish I'm usually not catching anything.  Almost every time I'm marking fish is where I actually get hits.  So for me, the sonar doesn't so much tell you where the fish are, it tells you where they are likely not. 

FWIW.

You can certainly catch plenty of fish without a fish finder, but a fish finder can make your fishing a lot less random and a lot more effective.  For example, you can certainly catch kokanee by trolling around blindly, but you can catch a lot more by finding them using sonar, setting your lure at the depth where the sonar shows that the school is located, and then using the GPS features of your fish finder to hover over the school while jigging, or to troll through that area repeatedly in figure 8 and cloverleaf patterns. For some kinds of fish and some bodies of water, such as when fishing for lake trout in deep water, you almost can't catch fish without a fish finder.  The GPS features of a fish finder and GPS maps such as the Navionics maps are just as important as the sonar features of a fish finder. But for some kinds of fishing, such as fishing in shallow rivers, a fish finder isn't much use at all.

Crabman, to get an idea how the Navionics maps can help you, check out some of your favorite lakes on the Navionics Web App, which is at https://webapp.navionics.com/?lang=en#boating@9&key=%7D__lGxkioV . Before I bought the Navionics maps, for many years I would take screen shots of the Navionics maps of lakes where I was fishing, paste the screen shots into a Word document, print off the document, laminate it, and bring it with me when fishing.  After I finally bought Navionics maps for my fish finder, I wished I had bought them years earlier.  They're great, and for many kinds of fishing they're invaluable.  For example, the first picture is an example of the underwater features in a small portion of Flathead Lake.  Lake trout hang out in some very specific and often pretty small areas in that portion of the lake, and the Navionics maps let me go directly to and hover over those areas.  In many parts of the year, lake trout will be right on the bottom in 170-240 feet of water.  I use the split screen sonar features to zoom in on the bottom one-sixth or one-eighth of the water to find lake trout in the underwater topography, as shown in the second and third pictures below.

f.f. absolutely helps me find and catch more fish than without.

It depends on what you're fishing for and how you're fishing.
It's about finding structure, it's checking current lines and rips for bait balls.
With a fish finder my ability to find this pinnacle at PC is good.
Without it, you have to use what your lure will tell you.
A FF with GPS and good charts is invaluable if you go in the salt.

I fished for years without a fish finder.  Caught plenty of fish, and I think I was more observant of other water characteristics when I wasn't staring at a screen.  Things like clarity, bugs/bait, current, water surface changes (that can indicate depth changes in some cases).

Now I have a fish finder with chirp sonar, GPS and Navionics mapping.  Still catch plenty of fish, but I'm using the tools that the FF provides.  Depth, speed, location, structure, fish presence.   I like having the mapping to plot a track and retrace it if desired.  When I'm salmon fishing in the river, I don't turn around if I mark a fish, but I may troll multiple times through an area that I know is holding fish.  If I'm not marking and not getting bit, that's a good reason to go troll another location.  In the saltwater, I use the GPS/mapping as my primary navigation tool - I think navigation is essential on the salt, and wouldn't leave home without it (I have a backup handheld GPS/mapping, so even if I forget my FF or battery dies, I can still navigate).

Depending on the fish species and type of fishing you do, you may or may not benefit from using a fish-finder.

It depends on what you're fishing for and how you're fishing.
It's about finding structure, it's checking current lines and rips for bait balls.
With a fish finder my ability to find this pinnacle at PC is good.
Without it, you have to use what your lure will tell you.
A FF with GPS and good charts is invaluable if you go in the salt.

I agree that a fish finder with GPS and good charts can be invaluable, but the Navionics charts don't show many features.  I know of many areas where the Navionics maps show a smooth even slope, but I've learned by watching my sonar while moving around above that slope that it in fact contains significant gullies, ridges, and pinnacles.  These un-shown features often attract and hold fish.  I put waypoints on these interesting areas, but wish there was a way to get a more detailed picture or map of these features.  Has anybody had experience with fish finders which allow you to use your sonar returns to build your own bathymetric map of the contours of the bottom?  Can those maps assembled by fish finders be more detailed than commercially available maps?  In deep water, I find that the down imaging features of my Humminbird fish finder are no help at all in getting a picture of the bottom.

Regarding trolling for salmon in a big river or tidewater, the depthfinder helps immensely for re-adjusting the depth of your gear. I keep an eye out for fish marks, but I never chase em. Many times, when I've marked a few fish at once, I end up getting bit a few seconds later when my gear train trolls through them, so the fish marks can sometimes prepare you for a bite. If trolling over some deep water, sometimes the depthfinder will let you know the fish are suspended vs hugging the bottom, and you can adjust your gear accordingly.

You'll also lose far less gear if you have a depthfinder to identify snags such as sunken trees. You can reel up your gear before you ram into it.

GPS/chart plotter is handy for maintaining the proper troll speed, especially if you're using a spinning flasher that doesn't give the thump-thump on your rod like a Pro-Troll.

Is it necessary? No. But it helps, a lot.

I fished for years without a fish finder.  Caught plenty of fish, and I think I was more observant of other water characteristics when I wasn't staring at a screen.  Things like clarity, bugs/bait, current, water surface changes (that can indicate depth changes in some cases).

Now I have a fish finder with chirp sonar, GPS and Navionics mapping.  Still catch plenty of fish, but I'm using the tools that the FF provides.  Depth, speed, location, structure, fish presence.   I like having the mapping to plot a track and retrace it if desired.  When I'm salmon fishing in the river, I don't turn around if I mark a fish, but I may troll multiple times through an area that I know is holding fish.  If I'm not marking and not getting bit, that's a good reason to go troll another location.  In the saltwater, I use the GPS/mapping as my primary navigation tool - I think navigation is essential on the salt, and wouldn't leave home without it (I have a backup handheld GPS/mapping, so even if I forget my FF or battery dies, I can still navigate).

Depending on the fish species and type of fishing you do, you may or may not benefit from using a fish-finder.

+1. The best fish finder is your noggin'. Electronics most definitely will help you catch more fish, but if you're just chasing marks on the screen you'll probably catch less fish. I mostly pay attention to the depth for gear adjustments as Clayman pointed out, GPS and time for patterning bites, bathymetry and tides for finding new spots, and the sonar to make a decision whether I need to move if I'm not drawing strikes when I think I should be.

I have gotten pretty deep in the graph game... I echo what clayman and some of the others have said. I know for a fact that a fish finder can change the day and definitely put you on fish that otherwise you would have not been able to get... particularly in regards to certain species of fish. Lake Trout for example are incredibly challenging without a graph... with a graph i easily  4x my numbers. Walleye on the columbia is another species that comes to mind... being able to troll your gear right along weedlines will increase your shot at landing a big girl.

I have used the chart generating ability extensively in regards to small bodies of water that do not have charts and it has paid huge dividends in regards to developing patterns and finding fish.

Now all that being said... I have also got my ass kicked in a bass tournament at Clear lake because I didnt leave a spot that I could see big bass swimming around in on panoptix... which without it i wouldnt have wasted as much time. But when you can see a 5-7lb bass charge your jerkbait in real-time and then swim away its hard to leave.

If you ask Jed, the 2020 Angler of the Year winner (who, by the way also posted the highest score in the history of the event), he'd say no.  He's never used one and has no apparent interest in using one.

I, on the other hand, find it very useful in identifying depth, habitat and occasionally fish.

-Mark-

I agree that a fish finder with GPS and good charts can be invaluable, but the Navionics charts don't show many features.  I know of many areas where the Navionics maps show a smooth even slope, but I've learned by watching my sonar while moving around above that slope that it in fact contains significant gullies, ridges, and pinnacles.  These un-shown features often attract and hold fish.  I put waypoints on these interesting areas, but wish there was a way to get a more detailed picture or map of these features.  Has anybody had experience with fish finders which allow you to use your sonar returns to build your own bathymetric map of the contours of the bottom?  Can those maps assembled by fish finders be more detailed than commercially available maps?  In deep water, I find that the down imaging features of my Humminbird fish finder are no help at all in getting a picture of the bottom.

I think most modern ones allow you to make your own graph. Lowrance calls it sonar chart live I believe.    Reading on ifish and arima forums, people like the the new shading feature that Navionics added really helps with finding those small features.  Unfortunately its not on all bodies of water, but they have a map online showing where it is.  I think you need the platinum card and your finder needs to support "overlays"

I'd echo the posts above - fish finders are certainly not necessary, but they can help to up your game.  I fished for a few years on my kayak without a FF for various species, mostly salmon, trout, and smallies out of Hood River.  After purchasing a base-model FF I immediately noticed a difference in my catch rate, not in all instances, but in most.  The biggest benefit is knowing the depth, which is especially important if you want to fish on or near the bottom (or if you want to drop crab pots and not loose your whole setup because you don't have enough rope).  Secondary benefits for me include seeing snags before you troll into them (as Clayman noted), seeing suspended fish that otherwise you'd never know were there, and also, seeing temperature.  In the shoulder seasons, a degree or two of water temperature can make a huge difference in finding the fish or not, so having that readout is a big benefit at times. 

My entire setup was under $200, so you can get into a FF pretty cheap: FF (Garmin 5x) ($85), battery ($40), hobie battery cage ($35), FF ram mount ($30).  IMO worth it - if you're spending more than a few days a year on the water.

Mark- If you ask JED and he says he doesnt think fish finders matter he is blowing smoke up your ass. Ask him for numbers for halibut spots or see what he does when he goes fishing with Jim walleye fishing or me Laker fishing... lol.  If he has had enough whiskey he might tell you he reads the water