I have seen several questions about
locators and " arches" lately. Let me just
throw out a few things I have learned-- hope
it helps someone, everybody feel free to
add to the discussion.(lets not get in to
the which locator is best argument on this one)
The most important varible on what
you see is boat speed. If you are on plane,
you can see the bottom. Every thing else moves thru the cone too fast to recognize.
If you are sitting still, stationary objects
under the boat will draw a straigt line.(
limb, fish, turtle, dead body.) The classic
arches you see in all the photos are made
when an object moves thru the cone at
about trolling speed. If the boat is stationary and you see and arch , the object
has moved thru the cone. The length of the
arch (right to left)has little to do with the size of the fish, it has to do with how long the fish was in the cone. The "girth"
of the arch in its middle is relative to its
size. Also a small fish 5 ft under the
boat might appear the same size as a larger
fish 20ft under the boat.
one of the most impressive sight on a locator, is when you drift thru a school of
surfacing fish, Each fish will arch as it
moves under the boat, really "lighting up the screen" Most people are too busy fishing
in this case and do not look at thier locator. Make a point to do so, and you will
see what a school of feeding fish really looks like.
Bait fish look like dark clouds, or haystacks if they extend to the bottom.
If every thing pretty much blacks out,
below a certain depth-- Temp change--"thermocline" It may look like a school of
fish that goes on forever, but it is not.
I also find out that it helps me to
watch my locator when I go over places where
I know what is on bottom. Road beds , brush
piles, hard bottoms, soft bottoms. this help
me recognize similar structure when I see
it in unfamiliar waters.
Good luck MO

Good info there! Too many people rely on the Fish ID feature of there electronics and don't learn to use them on manual settings. You'll get way too many fish symbols to accurately assess what is going on.

The sight I've learned to appreciate is the clouds you mentioned with what look like lightning bolts or long line below it. Those are fast moving fish that are actively feeding on the baitfish.

Also, if you've got everything adjusted right and you see what looks like spaghetti on the bottom, you better start fishing! These fish will tear up a carolina rig or other bottom touching bait.

Kelly

MO, good info....it is true that when you see the box picture and the you use you graph, you think something is messed up....

Mo,
Thanks for the good info. You brought up a point and I wanted to pass my experience along and then ask a question for the "experts"...
I often fish in the summer for surfacing/schooling sand bass. Almost always, when they are surfacing, my locator reads zero or few fish. Now, I usually leave my settings with the Fish ID on..I like the little fishy pictures
Also, both transducers on my boat, the one for the deck and the one for the console are inside the hull of my boat.
Can someone advise as to if this is a settings issue on the locator itself, or am I losing some detail due to the transducers being inside the hull.
Thanks in advance for all your help.


------------------
Happy Hookin'
-Jeff

Thanks for the info.. I'm going to be working with my locator alot this spring,learning how to read them better.The info you shared answered some questions I had and will help me out when I start using mine. Thanks

Keep Reel'n
Vance

This has been very informative. I wish we could get more comment from the old hands. I have 2 Garmin 240's, and am profoundly perplexed by the array of squiggles, streaks, smears, blobs, etc. they display. I have rarely seen true arches. I saw a big thunderbolt once, and assumed it was a malfunction. One pattern I have seen a couple of times while drifting, that turned out to be stripers, was kind of like what you might expect to see if you dipped a worm in ink, and dropped him on a piece of paper. Then there are the huge, mysterious black blobs, that rise from the bottom. A guide suggested they were sunken Christmas trees. Who knows. I would be greatly interested in additional hints on identifying schools of baitfish. There's a guide over in Missouri that has some interesting pics of actual screens on his site (www.strikebass.com - click on PinPoint).

Good info all. Shortstrike try increasing your scroll speed to fast. It should clear things up for you on your 240.
One more tip. I can see a 2 oz. weight or a big bait on a down line with my 240 allowing me to varify the depth and put it in fish I see under me. Keep in mind that if you are in 40' of water and you see your bait or weight at the same level the fish may be some ways from it due to the cone angle.
While we are on the subject, I fished with a friend that has his transducer mounted inside the hull. Loved the way it worked. He was reading bottom at 50mph. (No air going across the transducer bottom)

one thing I meant to put in the above--
Remember how much of the water column
you are looking at. The cone is about
one-third as wide as the water is deep.
IE in 15 ft of water you are looking
at a 5 ft circle. You could be 10 ft from
the motherlode and not see it.
As much as I rely on my locator, I still
have spots that I will fish whether I see
fish or not.
I still use the locator more to find
spots to fish, rather than to spot fish.
Shortstrike---Assuming you are running
the right sensitivity-- Those black blobs
are bait or brush- What you saw while
drifting was the marks a school of fish
makes when moving under the boat. If they
were stationary , they would make unbroken
lines.
To see the arches , you need the boat
moving at trolling speed. I really dont
like to troll very much, but I will do it
while looking for fish, It forces me to
slow down and really look, ( keeps me on task), and sometimes I even catch some
fish that way. Many times I have been
trolling and seen the multiple arches,
killed the boat and told my partners to
reel in -- and they hooked up on the way in.
Good Luck MO

When I bought my fish n ski boat I had the transducer mounted in the hull. I purchased a separate transducer and mounted on the transom. Just have both leads hanging out where I mounted my finder. That way, if I knock off the transom mount, I can switch to the hull mounted one.

I definitely get a clearer picture with the transom mounted transducer but it does not do well when on plane.

My finder is nothing fancy. Lowrance x29 but it does the job. I use the manual feature to get a better picture of fish, grass, rocks, etc.

Just my .02!

How accurate are the fish symbols on a graph in particular the Garmin 160?

I have recently purchased a Garmin 160. I have a an aluminum bass tracker with the original fishfinder on it. It does not register the bottom but it does still indicate the depth. I'm not sure what that would indicate except that it is not working properly. Would your first choice be to put the Garmin on the trolling motor or replace the original on the console? Appreciate any suggestions.

I have the Garmin 160 on my console with a transducer mounted on the transom. I did this only because it came with a transom mount transducer. However when I am using my trolling motor I simply unscrew the nobs on the Garmin and turn it around so I can see it from the front of the boat. I have a hummingbird 400 on the deck but I busted the transducer so it no longer works. So this was the only solution until I can purchase another transducer for the Hbird. The Garmin is a great graph and I have been very pleased with it.

Good info Mo. I've been running the Garmin 168 with the 240X240 pixel density for about three years now and have been satisfied with it. But, the classic arch you speak of is a very rare sight on my screen.

In the past I started with a Lowrance thermopaper graph (this was my first actual graph), my step up from the old circular flashers. Hooks were very commonly seen on this system. Then I got an Eagle CRT screen graph back in the early 80's and it would also display the hooks on the screen very well. But, both of these system were analog display systems.

I have wondered if the digital processing within these new LCD units isn't somewhat responsible for dampening the "hook" effect some of us used to see on the older displays? I'm confident pixel density will inherently have a smoothing effect.

ShortStrike speaks about squiggle lines and streaks.....There are a few common causes for this happening on your screen. If you have a silt line below the surface. It may not be visible to you, but if your gain is turned too high, you will be able to see a series of diagonal lines beginning about the depth of the silt. These are reflections of signal bouncing back off the floating silt. The diagonal angle is about the same angle as your transduser cone angle.

If you are running along side of a concrete bridge pier or wall you will get the same effect as your signal bounces off this pier as it goes down. It gives a mirror effect.

And, if you have two fish finders running at the same time, there will be a point of intersection at some depth, where the signals overlap and give you some interesting looking signals.

But, I can't recall ever seeing a "lightening bolt", so I have no possible explanation for that one???

Vonrage, the finder you have that will give you a depth reading but no bottom line....Examine the transducer real carefully. Mine will do this when brush causes my trandusor to pop out at an angle. It's critical for your transducer to be shooting straight down. Not out at an angle.

------------------
Mike
www.WhiskerKitty.com