Electronic Crappie

Using some affordable, yet sophisticated fishing electronics can really boost your crappie catch when fishing from shore or from a dock or boathouse.

Enter the Humminbird RF15 wireless fish finder. Note: This article is about using the RF15 fish finder. For technical and sales information about the RF15, click here.

The Humminbird RF15 uses the RF45 Remote Sonar Sensor (RSS) to send information wirelessly to the receiver in the main RF15 fish finder.

You can't see it in the picture on the left, but there are fishing line connectors in the front and on the bottom of the RSS. The one on the front is for attaching the RSS to your fishing pole line. The one on the bottom can be used to attach a leader and crappie jig, effectively making the RSS a bobber and a wireless sonar sensor at the same time.

Because the RSS makes for a rather expensive bobber, make sure you are using a quality 6 or 8 pound test main fishing line, then use only 2 or 4 pound test for the jig leader. That way if you get your hook caught up and you have to pull the line free, the leader will break first and you won't lose your RSS unit.

Other then that one precaution, the set up works great! The first thing I do is cast out the RSS without any hook or bait just to check out the water and bottom structure and to note what depth the fish are suspended at. Then I tie on my leader for the proper depth, attach my bait and go to work reeling them in.

RSS Fishing Line Attachment Points