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When Jacob Wheeler was a kid growing up in Indianapolis, he never in his wildest imagination could have imagined how he would be catching bass today.
“We would go out on my Uncle Morry’s boat and drag a plastic worm around until we got a bite,” said Wheeler, perhaps the most dominant bass fishermen in the game today. “We didn’t have much for electronics in those days.”
Today, Wheeler is one of the most technologically advanced fishermen in bass fishing’s big leagues. His boat looks like a floating computer room. He uses a variety of units to find the fish and tell him what they are doing.
Largemouths and smallmouths can’t hide when Wheeler is watching.
He has won five championships in the last two years on the prestigious Bass Pro Tour and is widely considered fishing’s hottest angler.
He credits part of that to the mix of Lowrance and Humminbird units he relies on.
He uses sidescan to locate the habitat the bass will relate to. Then he will utilize front-facing sonar and Lowrance’s Active Target to pinpoint the location of the fish and what they are doing.
“Smallmouth live on irregularities in these natural lakes,” Wheeler said. “Big boulders, isolated patches of grass, gravel–I locate those areas with my sidescan.
"I might find a boulder almost as big as my boat. That’s their home base. But they’re not always there.
"They spend part of the day roaming near that home base. I can use my front-facing sonar to find out where that broken-up school of fish are roaming.
"They’re usually no more than 100 yards from that home base. Eight times out of ten, I will catch multiple fish that are just out roaming.”
Lately, Wheeler has used drop-shot rigs with plastic baits such as Ned Rigs to get the smallmouth bass to hit.
The Lowrance Active Target unit gives Wheeler a real-time look at how the bass are relating to cover and the baits he casts their way. The screen displays icons of fish moving under and in front of his boat.
Like LiveScope, Active Target is popular with crappie anglers who fish vertically. But anglers such as Wheeler have shown that there are applications for bass fishermen, too.
Some traditional fishermen claim that such real-time sonar units give pros an unfair advantage. But Wheeler points out that the technology only helps find the bass, it doesn’t make them bite.
“I’ve had bass follow a bait, then just drift off,” he said.
Wheeler was winning tournaments before the latest technology even came on board. He views advanced technology as just another tool.
A fisherman still has to have an awareness of seasonal patterns, baits, techniques, and bass behavior. But the technology helps once those criteria are met.
“I’ve learned more about bass behavior through Active Target and LiveScope than I ever dreamed possible,” Wheeler said. “It’s really made me a better fisherman.”
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