So I'm pretty new to fishing freshwater and fish finders. Fishing coastal flats for the past 15yrs there was no need for sonar. Now that I've moved up to the DFW area it seems like thats the only way to fish with any success. I'm using a raymarine dragonfly that has produced some pretty good pictures of the bottom in lake Ray Hubbard. I was out crusing the lake today and came across the following images, and several other I didn't snap a picture of. I fished the area hoping for sand bass, but never got a bite. I'm having a pretty difficult time switching over to fresh water fishing and could use all the help I can get!!

Shad hanging on a drop off?


A couple balls of shad with some larger fish around?


Fish?

I'm still new to mine - and I can't quite tell in that first image if that is a bait ball or a group of fish. I know I would remember where that dropoff is though and check it any time I was around!

The third and fourth pictures look like money to me. I see a couple of tight bait balls with lots of fish around that look active. Did you sit and fish these areas much?

Waiting to hear from the more experienced guys - I always enjoy these graph threads.

The Little clumps of bait are gonna most likely be small groups of 2-3 inch shad and the small fish arcs are prolly a little bit larger shad with the occassional variety of other small fish species mixed in. Nothin to fish on that's for sure.

So just a small bait ball hanging on that hump. How bout the third and fourth picture? Would they have been worth fishing more? I see what sloveless sees, a few bait balls with fish around yet I had not bites.

I tried to fish those last two spot a good bit. I tried ratl traps, tail spinners, slabs and in line spinners with no luck. I finally moved on and gave up after a bit.

Next time I'll try to put an SD card in to take a screen shot pic.

I agree not a lot of fish there. The down imaging shows how small most those fish are, probably mainly shad, some shad are 10-15 inch. A few catfish in pic one and 2 but not much.

Buddy, the only thing that I might have done in picture 3 & 4 is thrown a cast net. Those are small small small fishies based on the thickness of the arcs compared to the depth of water regardless of whatever your fishfinder settings may be set at. ( That's BAIT Pardner ).

Thanks for the insight! Since I've never used a fish finder, I don't really know what's bait and what's good fish. Do you by any chance have any pictures of "good" fish on a graph? Wether it be sand bass, hybrids, or stripers I'd like to see what they look like.

That's why I love these threads - I don't mind being wrong.

Maybe that's why I haven't been catching fish...

I'm no expert but here are few images. First one is a school of sand bass chasing a school of shad.

This second one is a mess of sand bass off the bottom. I didn't have the depth range dialed in so it repeats with a second echo below it in less detail.

You can see my lure dropping in to the school on this one.

Side scan with the bottom loaded with fish.

If you see this get your lures in the water, its game on.

I use a Huminbird 998.

Duece, could you PM me your settings on your 998? I have a 998 and 898 and have never gotten an image that clear.
Thanks