Depth and Fish Finder Help

[Mike Sutton]

No problem. I now see what you guys saw when you clicked the ad on my blog. That's an advertizement on the blog site, it's not my stuff. Looks to good to be true and I'm sure it is. And it looks like it's an underwater light like cp said.

A "Blog" is an abbreviation for "WeB LOG". It's basically an online journal. I've just started one and am using it to brag about my fish!

Thanks for the comments about the depth finder. They have been helpful to me!

[skiptomylu]

Using you sonar with arches instead of pictures (fish symbols) of fish is more accurate unless you are not moving. May things can show up as fish that are not really fish unless you are using the view that shows arches instead of the pictures with depth shown near the fish symbol. Arches are always fish, what kind of fish is another matter, lol!

[Moose1am]

That is the brand new Humminbird Side scanning Sonar system for fishermen. I think that Ed's Brother bought one of them. Wish he would tell us how it's working. HINT HINT LOL. You can visit the www.humminbird.com web site and read all about these new systems. I think they run about 1500 to 2000 bucks so get your retirement money out of the bank if you plan on buying one. To me they would be the ultimate gadget for the serious fishermen.

And if you vist Pat Hah's web site

I think I am going to sell a Kidney so that I can afford to buy one.



http://www.kentuckyhydrografx.com/index.htm
Scroll down the page a ways and look on the right side of the main page. Link above. You will see the new version of the sidescanning sonar that Pat used to make the Kentucky Hydrografx maps.

Mike, I too appologize for getting off subject, but it was in your blog (whatever those are). CP covered your question quite well. I've been using all different kinds of fish finders for years thinking I needed some of the features adverised. After playing with them for a while I always went back to the basics. Do yourself a favor and turn those fish symbols off. All they do is fustrate you because you see fish on them but no bites. Anything that will reflect the signal will show up as a fish. And there are a lot of things under water that will do this. Each time you go fishing adjust your sensitivity up until the screen starts to get cluttered, then back it off until its just is clear. This will enable you to see max detail of the bottom and thats what you want to be looking for - structure. Thermocline is another important thing to be aware of and with max sensitivity you can determine its depth. Do a search here on that. There has been some excellent articles written about thermoclines. I think it was Moose that goes into some detail and is worth reading. Have you ever been trolling along and all of a sudden you see a whole string of "fish" at exactly the same depth? That is probably your bait or a stick caught on the xducer.

Anyway, the future for fishing electronics does look bright. Back during the Nam conflict the Navy (I say Navy because thats where I first saw it) came out with SLAR. Side Looking Airborne Radar. This stuff was fantastic as it could see thru clouds and the results were almost as good as regular aerial photography. There are underwater versions of this which is fantastic. You can not only tell there is something there, you can see what it is. I have no idea how big of a boat you would need to house it even if the public could buy it. All we got to do is wait for a fishing version and then take a gunny sack full of 1000 bills and buy us one. There has been a few recent articles written somewhere but there goes my memory again. One in particular, they found a truck under the water with a body in it. Hopefully someone can remember the name of this technology in case someone wants to read some more about it,

[Moose1am]

I just was told that the Humminbird Sidescanning sonar units have more detail that some of the more expensive commercial side scanning units. So these units much be the REAL McCOYS. The guy that told me this does sidescanning sonar on KY lake for his business. So I guess coming from him it means a lot.

I know of one other guy that has talked about buying one of the new Humminbird sidescanning sonar units but he has not said much about it. Maybe he decided to not buy it or maybe he did buy one and just is not talking ...yet.

Humminbird's top of the line has an option of side scan sonar that is
supposed to give picture-like quality. Some of ya'll go buy one and
tell me how good it works :D Think it is called a 987. Be great if it works,
and keeps working. I don't mean to be negative, but have been a little
suspect of hbird lately - saw a few really expensive combo sonar/gps
units with electrical gremlins - this was before the Matrix series tho,
maybe they are sorted out now.

[jfraley]

I am going to go home a get the model number of my depth-finder and do some research. I need to experiment with the sensitivity on mine and see if I can do better.

For those of you who put out bamboo condos: Can you see them on your depth finder?