Structure-Fishing with Mark O'Neill

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Structure-Fishing with Mark O'Neill

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Educating anglers in marine electronics, mapping and fishing.

10/11/2026

I don't see many mornings on Geneva where the water is very calm, so when I do it is a good time to check out the Lady of the Lake wreck site. I have used this site as a test bed for Sidescan for years and I can tell you what I see today with the current hardware and software as compared to a few years ago, is proof that things do continue to get better and better!

10/09/2026

In today's world of FFS (Live sonar), one must remember that Sonar and Downscan still work just fine.......

10/04/2026

Another day of catching a variety of fish today on Geneva today. Also, a great opportunity to try and fulfil numerous requests for screenshots of various species and how to tell the difference between the species on both Live Sonar and traditional sonar, so here it goes. Read comments for given images and note the different depths of water each species was caught in, that was pretty constant throughout the lake based on the given species.

09/27/2026

Going back to basics with this post and the importance of GPS and Trails.

Went out this morning with heavy fog, which reminded me of the first time I purchased a boat with GPS, prior to that it was just a Lowrance 2330c flasher and paper maps. I launched on a day with very similar conditions as today, but not being used to looking at a Chart screen, I didn't have the Chart page displayed. When I finally remembered that I had GPS, I turned on the Chart screen and then saw that I had been going on one great big circle!

This is why I continually preach to people, when on big water, unknown water or on water with hazardous structure like rocks, make a Trail and use your Chart screen. Even today with me on Geneva, I continually thought I was going one direction but was actually heading in a slightly different direction. It is a very odd feeling when one loses their perspective of "north" but can happen quickly in heavy fog.

09/20/2026

Much of the talk these days is on FFS, but many are missing that there is much more to it than just seeing one's bait when casting or where to cast. How about what most anglers are truly NOT SEEING when using sonar, as shown below? My guess is that with many anglers, if they were using just the sonar view on the right panel below, they would just move on as they do not see the fish clearly, as their images are blended in with the boulder. But on the AT2 view (left panel) the fish are as seen very clearly, and thus why many times I will combine the views when using sonar and live sonar together. With this view, I have learned much more about what I am really seeing on both panels and also what I am missing.

08/31/2026

I did some updating on the power for my boat as I have gone from five primary batteries to four and then from one three-bank and one two-bank chargers to now just one. Very impressive setup from Pro Guide Batteries that will give me some more room and added power. The Lithium batteries have full NMEA connectivity, an App that is actually accurate and lastly the ability to shut off the batteries (and BT) for winter storage. I have worked with Pro Guide for over a year now and without a doubt they are the most impressive batteries I have worked with to date. I will put it all to the test later in the week, as I head to the Canadian side of Lake of the Woods for some bigger water quality fishing.

08/23/2026

Mixed bag of SMB and walleyes this morning on Geneva, but the real fun was dealing with these bluegills in attack mode, a catch on every drop!

08/22/2026

Thats a wrap on another successful Lowrance On the Water Training session. A bit of a challenge today having to restore a few hundred waypoints lost because somone telling client to do an unneccesary hard reset, but all good in the end.

08/09/2026

Time on the water this morning was cut short. In the old days I would have stuck around longer, but today my plan was to get off the water and hope to have boat in the garage and put away by the time this stuff hit today. I will be up on the Canadian side of LOTW in a few weeks and I can deal with this sort of stuff then, just didn't need to today. The nice thing about the SiriusXM Weather package that is displayed here on my Lowrance unit, it will work when your cell phone won't, including in Canada and on the Great Lakes.

08/03/2026

I have always used the HDS-8 Gen 2 as my baseline for sonar, no doubt about it. This first screenshot was from Lake Geneva and taken using an HDS-8 Gen 2 keypad unit and to this day, it has always been my target to achieve when testing and setting up my system. The second screenshot is from LOTW and achieved while using an HDS-12 Pro unit, while a different body of water, but I would say we are still on target (and cleaner) after all these years.

Address

Algonquin, IL

Telephone

+17733309702

Website

http://www.structure-fishing.com/

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