Fishfinder Setting

[TyBoo]

Do you normally have your fishfinder set to display fish symbols? Or do you rely on the actual displayed feedback from the sonar?

Mine (Garmin) very rarely displays a true "arch" (oh - it works real good on the simulator) and the returns it does display are hard to figure out for sure. So I use the little fishy pictures and have found it to be a fairly realistic indicator of what is swimming below. That is also how the middle poll choice got in there.

I'm just curious as to what mode others use.

 

[rogerbum]

While I don't see nice arches on my Interphase sonar either, the fish pictures are essentially useless. They can be very misleading - I can much more easily discern bait balls or shrimp balls without the fish pictures turned on. With the fish pictures on, bait balls often indicate as a few large fish.

Also, on my display the fish shown when the fish display is turned on always have their mouths closed - I'd feel a lot better about it if they looked like they're bitin'!! :wink:

 

[tpbrady]

The fishy pictures are mostly accurate except when you get into a bunch of jelly fish. Somehow or another they registered as fish. My son was complaining I calling out fish 5-15 feet under the boat and he said all he could see was jellyfish.

 

[Wefings]

There are so many "things " in the water here in FL [sargassum,eelgrass,jellyfish,etc..] that it drives me crazy to see something I know is not a fish, appearing as a fish .I also like to interpret the various densities of the marks and pretend as though I know what they are !. And dont get me started on the beeps.....................
Marc

 

[True Story]

My vote would be to nix the fishy pictures Mike. In the salt, I look for bait which readlily shows up on most fish finders. Find the bait and find the fish if your timing is right. Over the course of a day's fishing I don't see that many perfect arches. I was told in the eighty's when I bought my first paper chart graph recorder, that these are stationary fish typically not feeding, or fish that happen to be moving in the same direction as the boat. Every once in a while, we'll see a nearly vertical marking that spans several tens of feet. Get ready, if you see this mark heading towards the depth of your bait.

Tim

 

[Sawdust]

Mike?

Arches? Oh my, old Duster almost fell out of his rocker. Snooze away 'cause here comes Arches 101 (light version).

No arches? two major culprits. Usually the transom mounted transducer is not mounted correctly -- always a compromise between reading bottom at higher speeds and getting enough signal so that the forward part of the "lobe" can see the fish. Our little low powered units are marginal at best for seeing fish. Sometimes for serious fishing folk I install two transducers - and my Rampage fish boat has a through-hull tranducer, hours of shaping a fairing so the ducer sees nice smooth water, and a big-power transmitter - arches I've got. Fish? Naw . And of course the last time she was hauled for bottom paint they forgot to pull the paddle-wheel speedo... ouch. Loud cry from wallet.

Rarely have problems with commercial fishing boat installations because they have high-powered transmitters, turbulent-free water locations (almost 100% of them thru-hull), and many just use a digital sounder for depth.

So when you get up here for the 4th lets take a look. Those little fish symbols are totally useless IMO. If you can't see the scales on a salmon your finder ain't workin'.

Dusty

 

[C-Hawk]

No "fishy" marks here. I have a color screen and like to see the color density of the marks. Also read the density of the bottom.
As noted above, bait balls are hard to verify if you see the large "fishy" marks.

 

[CatyMae n Steve]

While I don't see nice arches on my Interphase sonar either, the fish pictures are essentially useless. They can be very misleading - I can much more easily discern bait balls or shrimp balls without the fish pictures turned on. With the fish pictures on, bait balls often indicate as a few large fish.

Also, on my display the fish shown when the fish display is turned on always have their mouths closed - I'd feel a lot better about it if they looked like they're bitin'!! :wink:

We've noticed those danged fish are always swimming the same direction too :lol:

Steve still accuses me of having tapes that I change out once in awhile, and that there aren't really any fish under the boat.

 

[gljjr]

The Fish Symbols will mark ANYTHING that is suspended in the water column as a fish. So when you go over a bait ball all you will see if a whole lot of fish symbols! Not what you want. Turn off the fish symbols, turn up the sensitivity to about 90% and look through the garbage on the screen. Pretty soon you will start to notice horizontal lines on the screen. Those are likely fish. The fatter the line the bigger the fish

Just don't be fooled into thinking your downrigger weight is a fish!

I just finished attending an Electronics Seminar given by Jeff Boyer at the local PSA meeting for Sonar and GPS. Jeff is a very accomplished Bass Pro from the northwest and now gives these seminars at the Sportsmans Shows. After watching his demo and then going and playing with the Raymarine unit I have decided to go back to the analog Lowrance over the digital Raymarine. The Raymarine filters out too much stuff. This is the second time I have seen Jeff give this seminar and I'm now convinced that there is NO WAY I will ever use fish symbols again.

Lowrance allows you to record your fishing trip on a second chip on some units. They had recorded a Salmon trip from Alaska and Jeff used that during his seminar. At one point he stopped the scrolling on the screen and with the sensitivity set at 75% you could see a couple of fish on the screen plus 2 bait balls, and 2 downrigger balls that dropped and then raised all on the screen. When he bumped the sensitivity up to about 90% you could see about 40-50 fish on the screen! But when he turned on the fish symbols all you could see was a mass of symbols. One bait ball changed to look like some sort of structure on the bottom and the other ended up being about 20 symbols. It was very a dramatic difference and if you had seen it you would never use them again.

FYI: Jeff said that if you are fishing for salmon you would likely want to use the transducer with the wider cone angle (50MHZ) and if you are bottom fishing you might want to use the one with the narrower cone angle (200mhz) as the 200mhz will show more definition at the bottom and the wider cone angle on the 50mhz will allow you to see more to the side of the boat where your lines likely are.

 

[gljjr]

BTW: Lowrance has free Emulators of a lot of their units. If you download the one for the LCX-111 you can see exactly what I mean.

 

[Ted Osborne]

Gary, I also saw the presentation by Jeff Boyer and I'm now convinced NOT to use fish symbols. It does take away the perception that one has when looking at those fish on the finder and thinking man there are a lot of fish down there. How many times have I not seen any or very few fishy things on the sounder and wham, fish on.

 

[Cutty Sark]

No fish symbols here. I prefer to see arches and as someone else said color density. Good topic, as I know I need to play with my fishfinder to get it adjusted properly, this will give me a push to do it today when I am fishing.

Sark

 

[TyBoo]

I fooled around with the fishfinder at anchor today. Set the gain up to 75% - anything over that and the whole screen was full. If I turned the noise reject up high enough to change things, it took all the blips out. There are too many choices on the adjustment menu! I have always set any of them that can be to Auto. I did see a bunch more real "arches" than I ever had, but still couldn't be sure if the sticks were fish or sticks. I have an unused video input to the other Garmin, maybe I should get an underwater camera. I should have plenty of time to dork around with the fishfinder next month up north. Maybe I'll let Dusty out of the traditional breakfast and hold him to his offer to teach me a thing or to. He still has some radar teaching to do too.

Another thing I tried (again) was splitting the screen to show the two frequencies separate at the same time. I usually have them merged. Now I can't remember which one seemed to show up the best, but one of them did. Of course, I was anchored in about 20', so it wasn't like there was an entire undersea world to scan.

Thanks a lot you guys. We went through this a few years back and I tried to get used to figuring out the blips, but eventually I just went back to the cute little fishy pictures. Now I have to start all over trying to be an FF expert or I will feel somehow inadequate.

 

[rogerbum]

Mike,

In shallow water, the gain/sensitivity can and should be turned down. As you get into deeper water, you need to crank it up. On my Interphase unit, I usually am at close to my lowest gain in less than 30 feet and at my highest in anything over 150. I find gain is the thing I really need to adjust. Other settings I can usually leave on auto. Of course, your mileage may vary...

 

[Sawdust]

Rocket science it ain't! Cleaning up the boat electronic noise is a major part of the initial battle before the finder will work. Easy to turn OFF every gadget in the boat - then ON one at a time and watch the screen. At any receiver gain setting near MAX any electronic fuzz in the boat will blanket the finder. My main motor is noisy and will wipe out the picture at about 90% gain. Trolling motor is okay. Sometimes, for a serious fishing guy, it takes a separate battery for the finder.

Gotta have relative motion to get an arch, so if you are anchored the fish has to move pretty fast to get a good arch. And when you are at troll speed any crap suspended in the water can look like a fish. Sad. A good, well-adjusted unit will show bait schools, bigger fish working the school, your downrigger balls, fish approaching your rig -- and then turning away -- or pow!! Mine often can see a halibut on the bottom in 300+ ft. I split screen and watch both frequencies... if a fish shows on low freq and not high - do a quick search until you get the fish in the narrow beam - then get the net ready.

Of course all of these cookie-cutter units are similar - and sometimes I think one Chinese shop makes them all -- but most do not have adjustable power output - only receiver gain. Gotta know your own unit, and gain control is very important.

Wow! I'm in high gear this morning. Mike, breakfast too, man.

Dusty

 

[Patrout]

Thanks Dusty,

You did it again. I think I can start fiddling with my new (to me) Garmin 188C to tune it to find fish and bait schools for me now. I've heard if I get the settings right and all the conditions are right, I can even spot schools of shrimp, too.

Why don't the guys who make these things just hire you to write parts of their manuals for them?

Pat

 

[Sawdust]

Thanks Pat -

Your 188C is a very good unit and will definitely see schools (huh? Clouds? Swarms? Ooohhhh) of shrimp. Mine did at 300 ft. -- and we get all those great spots we need at/below that depth in our area. When the Wash. Dept. of Fisheries allows, that is. :evil:

Cheap and dirty test I used to use - drop a 3 oz. banana sinker on a line under the boat (gotta be clean water) - follow it down on the finder - then keep peaking the finder for max sensitivity. Huge surprise to find out how far down you can see that little chunk of lead if you are properly tuned. On these newer little tinker toys we use I'm not sure you can open them up and do much adjusting. Still miss my old paper chart machines.

Dusty

 

[Patrout]

Hi Dusty,

Now ya' got me goin'! I'll have that new Ace pot puller and 450 feet of sinking line along with a couple of nice little weights to keep the rig on the bottom. They say it's about 300 feet down in the Prince William Sound for the big boys, too.

Alaska lets us shrimp all season long. We don't even need a permit to do it this year. (We did before, but it was free.) All we need is the boat reg number on our float. The main problem, from what I hear, is pot thieves. It probably pays to stay nearby when the pots are down.

Say, can you identify the clouds of shrimp by the way they show up on the screen? Or do you kind of have to tell by how they move?

Thanks again,
Pat

 

[Sawdust]

Pat,

Pretty much like real estate - location, location. Appearance too - but when I see a cloud at +/- 300 ft, on a slope and near rocks -- that's where I drop the pot.

The fun part is trying to judge current. I put a waypoint over the "shrimp" herd, then estimate the lead I need to put the pot on the waypoint. Amazing how far you can miss!!

Nothing but jealous of your year-round open season. If we had a season like that here I'd have to borrow one of Pat Byrd's belts :wink: :wink:

Pot pirates aren't excusive to AK! I stay around my pots - and a soak time of an hour or so will usually get me a limit, so bottom fish the area is time well spent!

Good luck,

Dusty

 

[Sea Wolf]

Hey Dusty!

Whaty do you think of color video fishfinders, in general?

I've got an older Eagle unit that I've never rerally been able to use/interpret very well, so have just used a newer HumminBird LCR unit instead.

Joe.