Live sonar technology is changing the way barramundi fishermen, like Broome’s Eric Locke, go about their business.

These powerful units are a relatively new addition to the fishing landscape and allow anglers to see in high resolution how fish react and move in real time, and even what size they are.

With such detail at their disposal, live sonar has been a game changer for anglers like Eric.

He’s one of several big barra specialists in the Kimberley and Eric has caught more than 150 metre-plus barra.

On his dinghy he runs two Lowrance Active Target units and a side-imaging sounder when hunting for the big girls.

Eric even sets up an Active Target unit when fishing from the shore on the Fitzroy River, enabling him to relax in a chair on the bank and cast at big fish as he sees them on the screen.

He was one of the first to embrace the technology, getting one of the original Active Target units more than five year ago, and he is still using that along with a newer Active Target 2 model.

Eric, who inherited a love of barra fishing from his old man, Rob, said it had revolutionised the way he, and a number of his mates, fished.

“It has changed how we work lures and how we fish an area,” he said.

“The fish aren’t always where you think they will be, and with Active Target you can find them during the day or at night.

“It also means you can target big fish, once you figure out what you are looking at on the screen.

“You can see how big the fish are, and how deep they are.”

One of the interesting facets of behaviour he has noticed is that barra often travel in pairs, and when they do they can’t be tempted by any offering.

He doesn’t think it is spawning behaviour though, as he has seen it at all times of the year.

“They won’t touch a thing and they won’t split up,” he explained.

Not that many barra get away from Eric, whose best session saw him land seven fish over a metre, and 13 over 90cm.

He likes to use artificials, especially soft plastics and surface fizzers for topwater action, as well as live baits, but said he hadn’t noticed a major difference between how barra react to lures or baits.

Using Active Target means Eric can see the way the barra behave in high detail, allowing him to quickly change his retrieve, or even lure.

He has multiple rods ready to go so he can switch lures in an instant, and said it is not uncommon for barra to follow his offering multiple times, often as far as 30m, without striking.

Using Active Target means he rarely trolls any more, preferring to hunt the fish and cast at them.

While the technology is designed for boats, Eric has devised a system to set up his unit on the bank, with the transducer on a pole in the water, and he can then watch the fish swim by.

He can then see fish of varying sizes moving around, before having a cast when a large fish comes into view on the unit.

It is an approach to finding and catching fish that would have seemed far-fetched just a few years ago.

However, you still need that knowledge of your quarry gained through time on the water to fully capitalise on the tools at your disposal, which in this case for Eric is the Active Target units.

He knows most of the spots he fishes very well, and works around the best tides and moon phases to maximise his success.

Even then, he said the numbers do vary, but a good session for Eric would see him getting shots or 10 or more big fish in a session.

And that’s not just a guess, because he is watching those fish in real time through his Active Target screen.

It seems that these days, there really is nowhere for the fish to hide!

Photo Caption: Broome’s Eric Locke has been using live sonar technology to target trophy barramundi.