Couldn't catch any, but i found them.

I am still trying to learn how to read my fishfinder, Below are some pictures I took while wandering around. Any advice is appreciated. How do you tell what is a fish to catch and what is bait?

OK, somoeone has to know more than i do and can share some knowledge of what we are looking at here. 37 views and no opinions...not like the TFF community

I've got an old, old Humminbird wide100 that is kind of similar, and the display on yours is fairly self explanitory, just looking at the images.

The first picture shows larger fish at 3' deep over some brush over a dropoff.

The second view looks like a tree or stump at the bottom of the channel.

Third picture show fish at 3 and 4' and the others show fish and the smaller solid dark ones are baitfish such as large shad or bream.

When you see several long vertical lines in a cluster up off the bottom those are your baitfish and shad swimming in schools.

A lot of times you may find fish and baitfish but they are not actively feeding, but don't let that stop you from trying to entice a strike by changing up on your retrieve and try to keep the bait above the depth that you see the fish, because they can't see your bait if your fishing under them.

It depends...
Were you moving and how fast. Don't forget that the screen is a time record. Very slow movement may show the same fish multiple times. Changes in bottom contours on the graph imply movement so multiple fish images are probably multiple fish, but you also have beamwidth to consider (one fish swimming in and out of the beam). It can get a little complicated.
I think that the images show that you are on top of fish and in some cases, structure. So bait up and give it a try.

are these from southlake? what were you using as bait? IMO,the outline or hollow fish are the bigs. my recomend is turn the fish id off. learn to read your pings minus the fish id. cant be for sure what these are from these shots though. could be gar, cats, bass or maybe a mix by the way they are hanging out with & around the bait. shad, slabs, cranks would have been my choice of bait/lures in this instance.

found the wolf pack! did that once or twice. then couldnt get them to bite.

Thanks everyone,that does help me. I was not at Southlake, I was actually just at Whoterock. Realy trying to learn the FF. I am thinking i found some crappie. I did not bring any gear to fish for crappie,only bass. Probably why i did not get a bight.

Steve, I'm far from an expert with my own FF, but I have had it long enough to know that the fish ID feature can be deceiving. While some, if not many, of those symbols you've got there are probably fish, I can promise you that some aren't. Submerged trees in particular have a way of morphing into schools of fish that aren't actually there with the fish ID feature on. I turn mine off most of the time. It really does help to play around with the gain a bit. It took me a little while, but now I'm confident that I know what a fish looks like without the ID on. With the gain lowered, it's an arc, with it raised, it's more of a self-contained blob.

Again, I'm no pro at this, but I've found that the auto-gain setting seems to work best if there's not a lot of cover/structure around. If there is a bunch of wood or trees, I turn off the auto mode and back off on the gain. If I'm lucky enough to be fishing an area that has a lot of grass, I will sometimes turn the fish ID thing back on and maybe even up the gain a bit, as I've found that it does a good job of picking up fish that are deep within the grass.

Hope this helps. If it's any consolation, I've been skunked several times in spite of the fact that I could clearly see fish all over the place. Seeing them is one thing, catching them's another.

That does help, I never thought of using it without the fish id on. This is my first FF and i am sure i have alot to learn. good info on the gain. I will have to give it another try next sunday.

I have a Humminbird PiranhaMax 180. I was out the other day at proctor trying to catch a little bait, cast netting from the kayak. Even though I saw fish on the FF I was not able to catch anything in the cast net and I had several good throws.
From previous experience I am pretty sure when the the FF shows fish they were there. But they may not be there now. Also there is no way to tell species on the FF. I was in amongst them here a while back. Lots of fish showing on the FF. Then I actually saw a few of them, all Carp.
Just because you can see fish doesn't mean they are biting either. I have been amongst schools of White Bass that I could see and I threw everything I have caught them on previously and did not even get a bite. They just sat there and watched the lures go by.
FF are great for finding the right structure and depth to fish but mostly I just ignore the fish.

Another far from expert here but as others have said, turn off fish ID and read arcs. Heavy arcs equal fish. Scattered arc is baitfish or brush. I'm just barely reading them for saltwater which appears to be easier as I will see either ground, dropoffs or fish.

I use my FF to first and foremost to locate structure and contours!.

The second most important function is to eliminate empty water so you are not fishing empty spots. This is easier when fishing deep. That alone will improve your success dramatically, but it is still called fishing. Remember all those conversations about which bait, color, size, etc? they still apply.

Naming what you are seeing accurately will never come to most fishermen that are not on the water on a very regular schedule, but if you target the same species, in the same area, you will start recognizing how the fish related to the structure (or bait ball) and making some impressive guesses on what you are seeing. Pay attention to the shape and spread of the school, the relationship to the thermocline, and go back and look at them again after you have started catching. You will start seeing patterns that will work in other similar lakes. Even then it is still a surprise regularly with different lakes changing temps very differently.

there is no magic bullet, but if you focus on the structure and bottom contours as well as thermoclines, you are half way there.

Good luck, Phill

Like Carver said - first and foremost to locate structure and contours. Also use FF to know depth to determine types of baits to use when trolling so you keep them near, but not on, the bottom. It is pretty exciting through when you pass over a large school of shad and white bass and it looks like a big black cloud on the Humminbird!

Thanks everyone, i will turn off the fish indicator and just work on learning the arcs. That makes sense.

in the spring put your yak over em (sandbass/crappie/carp etc, etc.) its hard but make yourself put your pole down n start tuning till your confident & can identify.