Mystery fish

[popeye]

Hi there Popeye here, I fish the Firth of Forth regularly from my sailing yacht I
have my fair share of catches (flatties,coalie,pollack,small bass) but my problem is I have a fishfinder fitted which picks up thousands of fish of all sizes!!!!!!!!!!!! Most of the contacts are deep water app 50ft, not less than 4ft down and 10ft clear of the bottom. I have thrown everything at these fish
prawns, mussels,squid, sandeel,lug worm,ragworm, plus lures of all kinds, eddystone eels,muppets,feathers of all colours,tobies, everything!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have spent so much money on differant baits my wife says I would have been better off having a seafood salad and done with. Bye the way it isnt just me, my friends at the yacht club that fish cant make contact either.
What do the other site members think, what sort of fish do think they are from what I have described,can you recomend a differant approach,maybe a bait I can try. Bye for now
Popeye

[fishypaul]

sandeels or herrings maybe

[Greenheart]

Could also be Jellyfish as these will show up on the sounder. Could account for the lack of bites...

[TURBOTAKER]

Originally Posted by fishypaul

sandeels or herrings maybe

As fishypaul said,it could be baitfish or maybe loose seaweed,ive known weed show up on the sounder. Could also be the fish are there but aint feeding.

[captain chaos]

Ha ha ha that made me really laugh I nearly wet myself,
Bad news is, all kinds of rubbish floating beneath the water will show up as fish on a "fish finder", unless you have one of these very expensive ones the trawlerman use which picks up heat(infrared).
It does show up fish certainly....especially if your over a wreck...9 times out of ten it will be weed unless your on really good ground...having said all this if the fish aren't feeding, you will not catch them!!!

[captain chaos]

Originally Posted by captain chaos

Ha ha ha that made me really laugh I nearly wet myself,
Bad news is, all kinds of rubbish floating beneath the water will show up as fish on a "fish finder", unless you have one of these very expensive ones the trawlerman use which picks up heat(infrared).
It does show up fish certainly....especially if your over a wreck...9 times out of ten it will be weed unless your on really good ground...having said all this if the fish aren't feeding, you will not catch them!!!

actually that was a bit negative...can always scale down on your hook size and offer strips of tiny morsals of bait???

[KKK]

Many thnings show up on a sounder including squid, weed, sandeels etc. If you want to try for fish try and get some small lures (down to shrimper size) and get them just below the markings

[cliff]

I had the same problem when I was fishing in loch Ness a few years ago. The owner of the local tackle shop said that the reason was that the fish sink low when they are not interested in feeding.

[aardvark]

I had the same --water was full of jellyfish.

Graham