Quote Originally Posted by Mean Morone View Post
Peter, I can't really help with being able to tell the difference between catfish and stripers, but I do have a friend that fishes catfish tournaments and he claims that he can tell the difference. He says that fish finders react differently because some fish are scaled and others like catfish aren't. Supposedly it's the difference between scales reflecting and skin absorbing shows up on his fish finder. He is pretty successful on catching big catfish and nearly caught the state record hybrid striper in Ohio many years ago. I do respect his opinion. I hope others might have more knowledge about this and would like to impart some of that knowledge to the rest of us.
There is probably something to that. So would the sonar return be more or less of an echo?

I was thinking maybe their behavior. Do they stack? School tight or lose or at all? Move around much or just sit there? Like crappies stack sometimes (have to confirm that with Pappy though) I'm no expert. Hang near the bottom? Strippers do that too so that would not help.

They do bite differently but sometimes stripers bite like that too.

I will say that I was positive I was on top of stripers based on what they were doing based on my experience with this graph until we caught two cats. We caught a striper too there.

I have stalked gar before at 30' in the creek and hunted grass carp at night on the surface.

Maybe hunting would be better. You hopefully see what you are shooting at.