7 expert tactics for catching more—and bigger—perch and crappies through the ice

Always manually adjust your sonar screen

#4  GO FULL SCREEN

I always manually set the bottom depth on my sonar unit (whether forward-facing or traditional) to be no more than about five feet deeper than the depth the fish are using. Doing this allows me to increase the size of the fish on the screen so that nothing falls through the cracks.

Understand what I am saying? If you have your sonar unit set on automatic mode, the screen will typically highlight everything from the surface down to 40 or more feet. But if the fish are cruising along the bottom in 28 feet of water, you’re not only compressing all of the data, you’re also wasting half of the screen—between 30 feet and 60 feet—showing you absolutely nothing. So, if you manually select the bottom depth, you maximize the zone of activity and see everything at the least level of compression. A 14-inch crappie or perch will be huge, resembling a 10-pound walleye, so you’ll never miss it, even when it’s a faint return out at the edge of the cone.

Even more importantly, when you manually adjust your screen this way, you’ll maximize your ability to monitor the mood of the fish. Are the perch finning tightly to the bottom or suspending five feet above it? Do the crappies spot your lure as soon as it clears the bottom of the hole and rise up to meet, greet and eat it, or do they stay put, reluctant to bite until you bang them on the head with your bait? You can answer all of these questions and more when you fine-tune your sonar manually. Picking the perfect presentation then becomes easy.