Fishfinder reading help
 

Just came back after a few days at sea. Captain was targeting Scup and Sea Bass. When we went over structure and found the mound of fish we wanted, we would go through the process of anchoring and backing down on the spot we just marked.

Though, once we went over the exact spot, the fishfinder just showed the bottom as flat no matter how many times we would go back over it.

Is this normal? I would think that it would show the structure the whole time you sit over it instead of scrolling ahead as if we were moving.

Most traditional fish finders will only show a very small area directly under the transducer. In 30' of water your only looking at a bedroom sized area of the bottom. u might have been just off to the side or uptide of the structure
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I have a Garmin GPS/fish finder on my boat and after 8 years I still have NO CLUE how any of it works... I use it for depth and coming in in the fog... thats it. It always shows fish icons which I'm convinced is all mis-reads of seaweed clumps... I have never found fish with it. I 'm a tech moron. I read the directions but after a while it sounds like blah blah... (did I mention I'm a surfcaster that just happens to also own a boat? hahaha)

The new fish finders with CHIRP are extremely good at showing structure and fish; even when you don't even fine tune them. But like anything you need to learn how to use them and as suggested the cone in shallow water is very small, so getting on a piece of relatively small structure isn't always as easy as turning the boat around. It's very helpful if you set up your charting program to lay down trails, that I find is the best tool to retrace and hopefully find a piece of structure or fish you might have just gone over.

I had a good tog spot that was nothing more than a large bolder in otherwise featureless water and even though it was as wide as my CC, at times it was frustrating to find it and in a wind anchor up so you were dropping crabs beside it. Sometimes I'd have to reset a few times to determine the drift, scope needed, but it was always worth the effort in yummy filets.

Speaking of fish finders and how to read them. Take a guess at what this is. Found it lurking off the rock wall near Newport navy base.

Loch Ness monster?
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A giant glass bong?

This is why you see allot of 'southern; boats like from Conn and LI with the 'T' set up with twin anchors on the bow sprit.

You can really dial in on the spot precisely. take in on the part anchor slack the stbd and boom you on it. period.

I don't like the look of that setup. But it is effective on bottom fishing like bsb and tog......

Side view rules, you'll find good bottom in no time, staying on it is another story.
With anchor set I've stayed in reverse gear to maintain a spot...
Tog are coming! :-)
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This was after 5 days of stormy weather (few years ago) that kept me from checking my lobster pots, which were set along the wall at between 20 and 24 feet deep. (up until to this point I only used 2 bricks in my pots)

If you notice "Nessie" is just over 20 feet tall.... That was one of my pots that got pushed out into deeper water by the current with about 80 pounds of moss and seaweed wrapped around the rope.

I had to use a grapple and a lot of patience, but I did get 4 of my 5 pots back that day. "Nessie" here was the one I couldn't get....

She's still out there somewhere.

Looks like Balney, the Red Chinese Dinosaur Signals Intelligence Device off NUWC

You really need to be moving to see "structure" the difference in depth as you move will present as a hump, once you stop you are just looking at a spot especially in shallow water.

Ironically I haven't seen any boats with that set up, always a bow anchor that's all chain and then someone anchors off the stern, though I'm sure there are personal charters that have that setup for tog, we only get to target them for a few months here tops.

BSB and Scup at least venture a bit so we can afford to swing.

@Billybob I can definitely see that (literally and metaphorically) as a reason with the speed. You just think the sonar from being on top of it would constantly ping at the same spot showing the changes regardless of speed.

Thanks guys for the education. It'll come in handy when I take my yak out in search for fluke once this FW%$@$%@ wind stops!

I may be crazy (many say I am) but when my fish finder lights up with fish icons I CATCH FISH. It has really been consistent. 2 weeks ago I was on pogies schools but not getting chases. I moved off, the FF lit up and BANG I was into high teen to low 20# fish.

Just for info. I use a color Garmin 300C and a separate Garmin 547 GPS.

Navionics and simrad have lots of tutorials on getting the most out of your electronics. Most folks don't have a clue what they can do
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Nothing says Googan more than using fish icons
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🎯
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:rotfl:


Pumpkins

But aren't they smiley faced fish icons?
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Navionics is useless for my FF for where I live (and stupid expensive!), the Captain has a Garmin but where the manual for that sucker is I shudder just thinking about it. He has another unit that does side imaging but I'm not sure if it is in tandem with his FF.

Computers, computers, computers....

Thank for the vote of confidence Ron. Always nice to see support from a fellow fisherman.:af:

My new fish finder only has fish symbols no arches
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No worries Poncho. I would guess that there are some "elitist" on the site that just think icons are for us rookies.

No offense meant but how do you tell the difference between bait & fish, bass or blue fish, dogfish, etc......using fish icons.
May as well have a slot on the machine to put quarters like an arcade game 😜
Does your radar show boat icons ?
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Bait looks entirely different than a school of bass or blues. I agree I can't tell the difference between bass and blues but bait, including pogies, look totally different.

You should have a setting on your FF which you can set for it to pick up fish that it reads of a minimum size. It will still show a school of bait but it would look like a grouped up bunch of suspended seaweed. The fish icons will come up when the minimum is read (i.e. you want the icon to show up on fish that are over 15", it will only pop up on fish of that size). Some FF's have alarms you can set for that too but that's a bit model based I believe.

I'm all set.
For you Googans that need advice, my 19 year old son Leo can be hired to tune and teach you to interpret your sounders.
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fish icons? I don't need no stinking icons

What about Mrs Munafo,does she know about sounders too?
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No
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