I've watched at least a dozen "catch crappie using sidescan" type of videos and I can perfectly understand what they're showing on the videos. I see and properly interpret the outline of the dock, the floats on the dock, the pontoons on a pontoon boat and even the crappies under the dock. I get the whole shadow thing and using the proximity of the shadow to determine the depth of the fish that you're seeing, but I don't see any of that stuff on MY UNIT. Very frustrating and I'd love to know what I'm doing wrong.
I did just watch one video where the guy suggested that the triple shot transducer should be kicked up roughly 15 or 20 degrees above flat and I don't think mine is anywhere near that. Going off of memory, I'm guessing that my transducer is mounted at very close to the same 90 degree angle as the hull of the boat. Could it be something as simple as that? I'll get around to experimenting with that some day, but obviously I don't wish for my downscan or sonar to suffer if I change the angle of the transducer and I believe that my sonar and downscan are working as expected.