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GPS Marks; Theft and Sales

MoparKevUk

By MoparKevUk
in Boating

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MoparKevUk Newbie

MoparKevUk

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Was reading an editorial in a fishing mag and it was going on about the sale of alleged hot firing GPS marks on Ebay and the theft of GPS's just for the marks. Does this really go on? There was also a comment about a bloke who bought a kitted out boat and the GPS had the marks still in it, which were all good. He reckoned the GPS marks were worth the price he paid for the boat, fishing wise!!! So lock your boat GPS's up, eh? ;)

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dhess Newbie

dhess

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I don't doubt GPS units get stolen for their marks but I reckon most people are having a bit of a pull with their so called priceless, secret GPS marks.

Best GPS marks in the world are useless if you don't know how to fish them and anchor drift over them correctly.

Far more valuable having a good sounder and knowing how to use it.

Would be very interesed to hear other peoples opinions and wether or not they disagree with me.

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Yellow Peril Newbie

Yellow Peril

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I have no doubt that there are some very valuable marks out there, but certainly true that you need to know what you are trying to catch out there and what works best.

I have now built up a collection of about 30+ wrecks from Tweed to 1770 (not including the well known artificial reefs) and they are some of my best marks.

I'll sell the lot for $500 to any buyer....

(yes I am kidding and no I won't sell them or give them away)

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Yellow Peril Newbie

Yellow Peril

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Get ya sounder offf 50 kHz?

50 kHz os the way to go for me. I get a 45 degree (actual is probably 20 degree) beam at 50 kHz and I think 10 degrees or less at 200 kHz. I don't remember the angles spot on, but common sense dictates that the more you see the better, at least in relatively shallow water. 200 kHz is for 60m and deeper.

In actual practice, I have been running in dual frequency mode in under 40m for the last few months and am happy with that. The different frequencies show different things in different ways. 50 kHz is probably better for picking up bait and fish, 200 kHz is probably better for defining bottom structure.

You can do whatever you like.

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dhess Newbie

dhess

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Other way around. 50 kHz is better for deeper water 200kHz better for anything down to about 150m in my experience anyway. Lower frequency has better penetrating power but does not show as much detail. Have played around a bit with 50kHz 200kHz split on my Furuno and the results are pretty interesting. You are right about the higher frequency having a narrower angle though.

And BTW the screenshot of your sounder just looks like a lot of little, colourful rubbish reef fish. :P :silly: Jokes

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dhess Newbie

dhess

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Been thinking about it a bit more and its very possible that I have never fished any spectacular ground. When I started fishing offshore noone would ever divulge any GPS marks to me so everywhere I fish I have found on my own.

How hard do you think it would be to stumble upon one of these spot x's? In about 50 or so offshore trips I have found some really good ground but nothing that I would call a real gem. There were a couple that would have come really close but all in the offshore moretoon deep green zone.

A while ago someone was telling me that the real magic spots don't appear particularly exciting on the sounder. e.g. a very slight rise on what is otherwise a big area of featurless bottom. These spots are supposed to not get flogged as most people will motor over them without a second thought.

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mick fillet Newbie

mick fillet

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Gps marks pwfffft!!

only good as a general area to work I found. take sqaure patch off moreton for eg. its a massive patch of ocean to try to cover yet in books and mags theres a specific gps mark there nothing on these marks. you have to cover the ground and find the bait etc.

bait move around and scatter off shore as well. find the bait find the fish.

also never believe a gps mark if it ends in 00's. have a look at your own gps marking there always made up of scatered numbers,what the chances of hot spot being under the exact cross over points of a longatude and latitude ending in oo's. the gps marks in a lot books and on line are like this.

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Davo_Dinkum Newbie

Davo_Dinkum

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gps marks are a guide .

got u to the rough area then start looking.

people been fishing for years with out gps .

using maps , compass ,landmarks ,sounder etc .

we got off the net a list of marks and printed them out to put in the gps ,just general parks off the reefs etc .

dad and 1 checked some of them to his maps they seam right .

again the don't really mark a exact spot .

sort of just where it starts ,middle and finishes.

most of the spots had 2 or more marks .

gps would make it easier to keep out of the green zones i think .

i would have no idea how to guess ,if i'm 1.2 km of flat rock .

and as heaps of guys said ,if u don't know how to fish it or used the sounder ,the gps marks are not worth poo.

if i went off shore with gps marks i would catch no fish ,simple as .

i go offshore with some1 who know what they are doing and they guide me ,that would = fish.

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Yellow Peril Newbie

Yellow Peril

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How hard to stumble over one of the spot X's?

Some of the wreck marks are fairly well known by locals, so if you went out on a good day, you might be lucky and find someone fishing one. Then again, the wrecks are very small patches on the bottom, and you would have to get right up close to another boat on the spot which is not encouraged.

To stumble over one out on the open ocean would be like winning lotto. Good luck though. Nothing like you will see on general reef country. Best wrecks are on sandy bottom miles from any hard ground, and it is like coming over an oasis in the desert. Sounder lights up and always right on the spot - but yes there can be more schools moving around in the general area.

A mate of mine has a spot off Roonies which he used to fish for mixed quality reef fish. He went out there with a friend of his in their boat one day and the GPS was not good enough to show the fish. They had to go by GPS alone and cleaned up. I haven't got this mark yet, but I am working on it ;)

My wreck marks have come from trawling dive sites, GPS databases on the net, and from friends I have swapped marks with.

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AZZA Newbie

AZZA

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When I bought the boat I have now the gps was full of marks which I coppied to my gps as I fitted my own latter model, but best of all in amoungst the paper work for the boat were 4 printed pages of marks with desriptions of the spot and fish caught. I did the right thing and the guy was so pleased to get them back told me to take o copy of them befor getting them back to him.

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noname Newbie

noname

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Yellow Peril wrote:

Be interested in any other thoughts on value of good GPS marks vs just having a good sounder. My opinion above.
i only use 50 k when looking for things, i love wrecks, my favourite bit of structure of all. once found i change to 200k for a better look and try to identify the species, as i'm not really interested in the rubbish fish, but the quality suckers, so i look for what my sounder is relaying to me, pearlies school up different than snapper, as well as being a different color. bait schools being terrorised by pelagic's, then pelagic's being terrorised by me. also i think it's important to have your sounder giving you a readout at 70kmh is an advantage too, and i'm lucky there, as mine does but it wasn't easy setting it up though, if any of you know greg lamprecht, listen to what he's on about about sounders, then tell me he doesn't know what he's on about !!!

i can pretty much babble on for ages as every depth range i'm adjusting my sounder.

what about anchoring in deep water, who does what there???

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Feral Newbie

Feral

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For shallower structure you cant beat Google earth, shows anything down to about 20m if the day was right when the satellite went over. Also dont forget to dial back to historic images, sometimes conditions were better and things show up better. Then you just read the co-ords straight of the screen!

Its also good for "seagull fishing" you can see where everyone is parked and give it a shot next time you go out!

Here is a shot where the google images from different days overlap. Top half it was a nice calm day and you can see the reef quite well, bottom half wind was up, cant see anything. reef.jpg

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