What am I looking at?! New to SONAR.

[GreenEYESfromOHIO]

I have been scouting my lake with my new DEEPER portable fish finder that I troll behind the john boat. It is my very first ever fish finder and am excited to have one! I love to crappie fish and I know finding structure is vital to finding the crappie. I took these two pictures of what I was seeing on the sonar and being new to this, I'm not sure what the heck I'm looking at!

The first image (A) is a blowdown tree from shore going about 20-30' in the water. The manual says green denotes grass/weed but that is not the case as I know for a fact this is a huge tree. Not to mention you can actually make out the limbs. But what is that orange blob to the right of that?

A.


This second image (B) is something I came across just slow trolling around. If I had to guess I would say brush/tree but I dont see any distinguished limbs or branches. This was no blowdown, wasn't close to shore. Also notice im in 10.5' of water, whatever that is it's near the same height! It is also right on a small drop off, should of been a smokin crappie spot but I caught nothing on it. Also, I know fish..well at least crappie show up as arches on the sonar, it said it was marking fish but I only see one nice arch, thats the one far left, but it looks unusually large for a crappie! I want to say my sensitivity was set around 85-90%. Guess I'm expecting to much in terms of detail. Need your experience here fellas! Much appreciated!

B.

[flintcreek]

Sorry but I am not any help but following along. I am trying to get my depth finder up and running also.

[OrangeAgent]

The blob in the first one looks like a school of bait with maybe a fish or two under it, when undisturbed bait will be in a fairly regular shape, big pocks and such usually mean something is busting it up. There are a few brighter blips in the cloud, could be something like little white perch in a shad ball.

The second one i would say is a stump or big rock with fish stacked on top of it. Just because you didnt catch doesnt mean they werent fish. Nothing like seeing marks everywhere and not being able to buy a bite. At least if you dont have a fish finder you can tell yourself they must not have been there.

[Mr. S]

You also have to understand what the colors of your selected pallet are telling you. For instance, in Humminbirds' standard color pallet the more red you see in a individual target the larger the target. Sonar actually reflects off the swim bladder in the fish, so the larger the fish, the larger the swim baldder thus the larger the target

[Tony the Tiger]

This info is helpful to me also.

[catchNgrease]

I want to fish here.

You also have to understand what the colors of your selected pallet are telling you. For instance, in Humminbirds' standard color pallet the more red you see in a individual target the larger the target. Sonar actually reflects off the swim bladder in the fish, so the larger the fish, the larger the swim baldder thus the larger the target

[Ketchn]

Bottom photo is fish on structure .....top I agree with probably a bait ball....with what may be a tree on the bottom to the left of the bait

[SeaRay]

For more reading on the subject go to the South Carolina forum and click on the sticky for "Depth Finder Interpretations". About 10 years of info on there.

[Hanr3]

FYI- blow downs, lay downs don't always stay on shore. Over time they can migrate to deeper water. Rising water levels, wave action, etc. move trees around in the water. I have found trees 100' from shore that weren't there last year. Last year I fished them near shore. Plus DNR and fisherman have been known to hook onto a tree and drag it off shore to add cover to the lake.

Great images for a smaller sonar unit. I like the Walleye symbols instead of the bass symbols.