Finding brush piles?

[Five Rings]

New to the site and new boat owner. I've been fishing at Lake Ozark around Coffman beach trying to find crappie with no luck. How do you recognize brush piles on fish finders? All I see are little fish icons,water depth,water temp and the bottom. I've read the owners manual but I guess I'm not smart enough to figure it out. Can you see brush in the water with the finders or do you feel it with your jig? I have tons of other questions but figured I would start with something probably really simple. Thanks

[Jigging15]

Welcome to the site. What type of fishfinder do you have? You can do some google searchs and also some good stuff on Youtube.

[vic n]

Welcome Five Rings! Here's a link to one of the threads on the trolling motors and electronics page at the main forum. If it doesn't take you there, start at page 4. This thread is mainly about down imaging, but a lot of the pics show a split screen view which has the down image on the bottom and a traditional (altho color) image of 2D sonar on top. In these images you can see that what shows up as a sort of blob on the 2D can be seen as trees and brush on the DI. I'm not saying to run out and spend a ton of $$$$ on a new unit, but maybe it will help you identify brush. A lot of times if you turn on "grayline" on the older units, you will be able to see the bottom better and it will give you an idea of whether you are seeing brush or bottom. Good luck!

ps....if you want to find brush on LOZ, you may have to back into an empty boat slip!!

[WE16]

My setting on my fish finder, a hard bottom would be a solid red color.
A big rock on the bottom would show as a solid hard hump on the finder.
A bush pile would not be solid. It would show as mixed colors because it is not a solid object.
It usually will have areas that will show no return or gaps in the colors and very jagged edges.
I sure other on here will give you a better descriptions.
Find a map of the area you fish that have bush piles and play around and try to find them.
On the MDC web site Fishing | MDC is a list of fish attractors for a lot of Missour lakes (down on the right).

Good luck and have fun

[springhillwantabe]

sink a tree or 2 then go over it with your finder thats just the way i start like vic n said the brush is hard to come by unless you are around a lot of fihermen or do like i do and sink my own

[benelli1]

everyone above has given good information but I will add that a lot the brush on lake ozark will be found under the docks or in the wells, hence you will never see it on your fish finder. While having good electronics definately improves your chances of finding structure, simply fishing and putting in a little time in the right areas will help your catch as well.

[olesilverside]

I use a very inexpensive fish finding and structure finder, the Eagle 350 about $200....... and have no problem finding brush or anyother structure on truman...... like many say but you can drop one piece of something you know for sure is there and see what your unit shows..... never was one for the high dollar tech stuff, think most of it is to catch the fishermen....... for example, say a good unit is $1000, instead buy a decent unit for much less and take what you save and spend it on making your own attractors..... downside of this is if you fish a lot of different lakes, you will busy........ just my 02. cents.

[perchplucker]

We got the $299.00 Hummingbird DI unit and love it. We use it split screen with the DI on the bottom and regular on top. Just got it in November and haven't used it a lot because of weather. Not looking good for this weekend with highs in the 20's. I have gotten to play with it a lot because it is on the console. I play while husband is using trolling motor up front. Can't wait to use it in some other water besides the Missouri River. Found 1 really small 50 ft. chug hole right next to where a dikes hits the bank that was absolutely full of fish. Nothing was biting. Probably mostly carp.

[beagle man]

all good advice, welcome to the board,,,

[ripnlips]

Welcome to the board. And I agree with beagle man.