Setting your gain is probly the most important thing you can do. I set my sounder to 100% & then back it off until the area I am looking for fish is clear. This means you may have some degree of surface clutter.
In this picture I have split screen, running 50khz on the left & 200khz on the right. Notice the surface clutter all the way down to around 40m. I was not interested in anything else higher in the water column, just down deep. Notice how the bottom looks. A big thick bottom with a fuzzy looking appearance towards the bottom of the screen. This is wire weed on reef. You can see the difference between it & the first pic of a hard coral & rock reef. The schools of fish were a mixture of slimys, squire, pearlies, sharks, YTK, Cobia & a host of other fish.
In this image you will notice 2 horizontal lines on the screen. That is my live bait, right in the strike zone. Ealier that morning I watched a line descend to my bait, it was a fish of some sort checking my livie out, but I didn't get the chance to get a picture. My livie is right at the level of the bait ball on the screen. Notice a clear patch on the bait ball? This is where a predator has raced through it & scattered the bait. You can also see some large fish (arches )hanging around the bait ball.
The thick bottom gives it away as reef, with growth a depicted by the fuzzy appearance.
When bait is dense, it's sometimes difficult to see large predators. But the old saying " Wheres there smoke, theirs fire " usually rings true as far as bait is concerned.
Heath great photos, could you give a bit of info on what brand and model you are useing so that we can compare what the pic is like on different sounders.
Cheers Ian
ill get some shots off my matrix 25 and post them
Id like you to see what is hanging around my spot X
cos I dont know what it is , hangs around mid water
will post some pics soon
This is what fishing is about, finding the fish. I know alot of people that go to there fav spot anchor up and drop a line and wait. I'm the opposite. I chase them all day, using my sounder.
Another thing I'd like to mention, is that alot of us spend thousands on buying an expensive boat to suit our fishing needs, but skimp on spending a few extra dollars on a half descent sounder. (The sounder is the most important tool on the boat, and is often overlooked)
Brilliant Iank, thanks for taking this post further.
To compare I'll get some shots of my cheapie sounder (Bottom of the range Hummingbird SX100) and we can see the difference spending a few extra bob can do.
Good stuff blokes!!.
This is one of the best threads i have seen .Thanx for sharin valuable info with mugs like me who had no idea wat we are lookin at.
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