Chasing Birds with Team Tuppens
We recently went fishing off the coast of Palm Beach, Fla. with Captain Steve Sprague of Team Tuppens and his son Christopher to test out the GMR 1224 xHD2 Open Array Radar and its impressive new Auto Bird Gain feature.
Before we talk about what we found, you’re probably wondering why Auto Bird Gain is important. Chasing after the birds is a tried and true method of quickly identifying hot fishing spots, which can save you both time and fuel. If you find birds that are diving, you will typically find baitfish, which in turn means finding game fish. With Auto Bird Gain, the quick push of a button will optimize your radar’s settings to increase your chance of finding birds.
The first spot we went to turned out to be a long line of weeds, which we expected, since the return was not moving or fading in and out. Normally, finding weeds is a good thing because it’s usually something different and the fish will relate to it, but this year the weeds are so thick that they are getting in the way more than anything. We had just spent three days fighting the weeds and that was the last thing we wanted to do that day, so we ran to the next red blip on the screen.
At that spot, there were several birds diving for baitfish and a massive school of dolphin (mahi-mahi) following them. We ended up catching two dolphin off that spot; one that was released and a nice bull.
At the next spot, we saw about five birds, but they weren’t chasing anything, so we moved on. After that, we spotted two more birds and saw that they were diving for a quick meal. There was another school of dolphin in the area and we put two more in the boat and called it a day. It was a successful two-hour outing and we had a blast catching the acrobatic fish.
After seeing Auto Bird Gain in action, we came away very impressed with its remarkable ability to locate single birds. If you’re an avid offshore angler, you’re missing out on finding fish easier and faster than ever before if you don’t have the Garmin xHD2 Radar with Auto Bird Gain on your boat.
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