A Quick Tutorial On Gyro Binos

[Capt Josh]

In my experience i've been able to find birds a lot more consistently with the gyros than with the radar, although i have never had the chance to fish on a boat with actual commercial-style S-band radar installed. On the boats i've been running for the last few years with 64 mile open array Furuno radars, i have found birds up to 5 miles away, but i've had more success finding action at 6 - 8 miles away with the gyros.

When I'm looking for action at the farthest possible range (6 -8 miles with my eyesight) in the gyros I'm not necessarily looking for individual birds, as they are all but impossible to see at those distances. What i usually look for is a "mirage" on the horizon - a spot that will appear to shimmer in a darker color than the rest of the sky around it. Typically this "mirage" means a substantial flock of birds has gathered and is working a bait ball or school of gamefish, pod of porpoise or dolphin, etc.

It is absolutely IMPERATIVE to scan the horizon SLOWLY. If you move the gyros too quickly you will never pick up on the subtle changes on the horizon and you will skip right over these "mirages" that I'm talking about. It usually takes me a full 5 minutes to do a 180 degree sweep from port to starboard if I'm looking for bird schools at the outer limit of my vision. Everyone's eyesight is different, so your ability to pick up birds at extreme distances is going to be directly related to how well you see with or without binos. If your eyesight is good, you should be able to cover 15 - 20 miles (8 - 10 in each direction from the tower) with one 180 degree sweep of the gyros. You can imagine how much more fish you are going to be able to catch by doing this, particularly when you consider that the naked eye can only pick up bird schools at 1 - 2 miles.

Once you've located that "mirage" take note of the direction with a quick check of the compass and then run or troll towards it until the spot takes shape and you can clearly see the birds. Not all bird schools mean gamefish, but the more birds you spot, and conversely the more you run down, the more fish you are inevitably going to catch.

On a final point, it's important to remember to put the binos down and look around with your naked eyes from time to time too. It's easy to get stuck in the gyros and miss fish that are popping up within easy eyesight of the boat. I'll usually do a 4 - 5 minute sweep with the gyros and then spend 4 - 5 mins scanning the water within normal eyesight range of the tower.

You get into this rhythm, learn to be proficient with a good pair of gyros, and you'll be surprised at how many more fish you catch!

Tracy has a great selection of gryos found here:

http://www.meltontackle.com/categories/binoculars/

I don't see the Nikon's 14 X 40's listed on this particular page, but they are great cost effective gyros as well for around $1,200.

[jonesd055]

Captain Josh,
Thanks for the tutorial, I always look forward to your posts but more tutorials would be a great addition to "My kind of Madness." By the way which make and model gyros do you use?

Aloha,
Jonesy

[Capt Josh]

Captain Josh,
Thanks for the tutorial, I always look forward to your posts but more tutorials would be a great addition to "My kind of Madness." By the way which make and model gyros do you use?

Aloha,
Jonesy

We use the Nikon 14X40's here in PV, but in Panama i was using the Fujinon Stabiscope 16 x 40's. If you have the budget i would highly recommend the Fujinon's, but the Nikon's work very well too.

I'll try to get more tutorials up, the catch is that i usually sell those to the magazines (gotta put the kids through surf and riding camp somehow!). The magazines are usually a little more conservative when it comes to what they print so the madness usually goes here, and the tutorial and more fit-for-print stuff comes out in the magazines.

I have a downrigger tutorial in this month's Sport Fishing magazine and a kite fishing article coming out next month in Blue Water magazine (from AUS). So keep an eye out in the magazines for those kinds of detailed how-to articles.

That said, i will try to get more tutorials up here. If you guys have questions i'm always happy to help with them if i have the experience to lend some advice.

[giantfan]

Thanks for the lesson....

Just one more reason why this is the best damn site on the WWW

I can't wait to get out there and give it a try. Now.... if I only had a tower.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Excellent tutorial, Sobrino. And a special thanks for pointing out that, "put 'em down and look around" thing. I usually got addicted to the damned things and consistently forgot to do that "short range look-see" thing, but I almost always had one crew in the tower with me (I always ran two crew - top ones) and he would look short and I would look long. But you are so right, without him there I would have driven right over some fish!

Constant gyro looking can wind up giving you a head thumper of a headache, so we used to alternate using them. Worked for us.

As far as bird radar hunting is concerned, I ran my screens deep inside a dark compartment and some contrast, etc. tweaking made them quite effective and far-reaching. It took some time to learn how to do that tweaking and to interpret the signals, but it was time well spent.

Good stuff, Sobrino! Now, keep kickin' tuna butt with them JT's!

Hiya, Jonesy! How ya doin', Hula Man? Your JT's will be headed your way shortly. Aw, them poor Hula Ahi's!

Tio

P.S. Sobrino, you piss me off...your damned towers are taller than mine! Shoot, that ain't fair!

P.P.S. Howdy, Rodski! Did you get my latest mail? Our field staff is freaking out over those Quick Change lures of yours! Changing skirts in a lot less than a minute without unrigging the leader? Awesome, my man! Lemme see...'hoo destroys a skirt...well, just put a new one on and you're back in business in no time flat with the head that's getting bit? Wow! Got a particular head that's a killer, but the fish are on a different color that day? No big deal. Just replace the wrong color skirt with the right one without unrigging the lure to do it and go get 'em. Dayem, Rodski, how the hell did you come up with that sweet feature???

OUR NEW Website www.fredarchersworldoffishing.com

[Capt Josh]

Thanks for the lesson....

Just one more reason why this is the best damn site on the WWW

I can't wait to get out there and give it a try. Now.... if I only had a tower.

Thanks amigo!

And also, while it certainly helps to have a tower, i spent many years down here in PV on my 22 - 30' Grady Whites locating fish with regular binos sitting on top of the hard-top or just standing up in the bow. With or without a tower, using binos - particularly gyro binos, is surely going to help.

Good luck out there boys! I'm headed out again tomorrow for a surf/fish trip and i'll be putting this advice to work once again.

[jonesd055]

Right on Catain Josh, I totally understand about havin to pay the bills and I'll keep an eye out for the articles. I recently picked up an Old Salty Planer kit from Captain Joe Shute/Fishfinder Tackle and just started using it yesterday so I'll be checking out your down rigger article in Sport Fishing Magazine.

I got a really good deal on a pair of used Fujinon Techno-Stabi 14x40's last year and they worked great until I left the batteries in them and they leaked, so I'm sending them in to Fujinon to be repaired (hopefully). Lesson learned: Don't leave batteries in electronic devices.... A DC regulator plug kit would be the way to go on a boat so you don't have to worry about batteries and I've heard good things about eye cups to help relieve eye stain while glassing too.

Aloha,
Jonesy

[Capt Josh]

Jonesy i don't think you'll have a problem with Fuji, these guys are usually really good with fixing things and not charging an arm and a leg for them. We had a problem with our Nikons last year and Nikon replaced them with a new pair for pennies on the dollar.

The downrigger is definitely a TOP producer some years. Live bait, and even lures, fished deep near the thermocline and/or sonar marks has saved our asses many a day.

Good luck with it and keep us posted on the catching!

Also very good point about the eye-cups. I forgot to mention that in the tutorial but they are very good for keeping most of the ambient light out while glassing. Thanks for mentioning that.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Jeezum, what a great thread...all kinds of good, not-so-ordinary stuff that you don't hear about much. (And hey, did anyone else notice that Joshter parlays francais? Holy Cow, you never fail to amaze me, Sobrino! Merde!)

As far as I'm concerned, the downrigger is THE most under rated and underutilized fantastic fishing tool of them all. I write about them, and planers too, in all of my books, yet I know that damned few fishermen actually use the downriggers (apologies to the hotshots who do...I'm certainly not talking about you!) Hey, any biologist will tell you that pelagic fishes spend about three quarters of their time deep, usually with the bait, and they have no interest whatsoever in coming up top, if there isn't a lot of bait up there, or if they haven't driven it up - something that we know how to mimic when using downriggers and Spiders to get schools of fish, especially tunas, up so we can chunk them.

The bottom line is, you have to get your lures/baits, ideally ones that match what they are eating, around the fish when they are deep, or the odds are you aren't going to catch any, or damned few at best.

They are far easier to use than those who eschew them think and proclaim how hard that is. And just as JT says is the case with him, I can't begin to put a number to how many times that they have caught piles of fish for us while others fishing the exact same waters and fish didn't get a sniff.

And down in Cabo, squid, both the smaller, commercially sought grade and the bigger, fatter bodied young Humboldts (giants) are a common and highly favored, universal prey of every single pelagic predator fish species that swims there. And everyone knows, I hope, where those squid go in the daytime. Down, right?

Well???

A taste from one of the books...

And a Humboldt immitation that we will debut soon...

OUR NEW Website www.fredarchersworldoffishing.com

[Capt Josh]

Fred i'm fired up to use those lightweight bars on the downrigger this year...those humbolts looks great!