The High-Tech Fish
Finder
The old sonar fish
finders have been around for a while, and they're pretty helpful when you want to find a
school of rowdy largemouth bass. But what do you do when the ocean is your fishing hole
and all those fish are your livelihood? An innovative fishing company is using GPS to help
them locate and land the catch of the day.
Scalord Products Ltd. have upgraded to NT200 GPS receivers and the Omnistar
Differential GPS service to navigate to and within orange roughy fishing grounds. These
fish live on underwater sea mounds and other geological features which are difficult to
fish over. The speed and accuracy of the NT200 enables them to position their vessel and
gear accurately, and safely fish these small areas.
The GPS receiver is interfaced with an acoustic trawl positioning system on two of the
boats providing an exact geographical position of the nets. This is not only helpful when
looking for a favorite fishing hole, but in avoiding any international boundaries that
might be just a few yards off. "It was difficult to fish without GPS," said
Sealord's Vessel Manager Richard Wells. "The Differential GPS service has improved
its capabilities. We also fish Hoki where tow line accuracy is important."
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