Sonar Interpretation

[tubber]

And that’s not the bottom at 90’ it’s bait pushed down showing a false bottom in roughly 150’ of water.

Is that your jig working up to the decimal?

 

[Salty338]

Is that your jig working up to the decimal?

If you look close there is a couple different jigs going down to the top of the bait and back up through the fish. I can’t tell you how many doubles we had on that morning.

 

[Salty338]

This is another shot, different day, with minimal bait on the bottom but a big pod of springs that we got on.

 

[Saxe Point]

Seeing a bait ball and some fish arches can be encouraging. However 99% of all the fish I have caught in saltwater in over 25+ years have been when there are zero fish arches on the screen and I have always had good quality equipment. I too think seeing fish arches in the saltwater is overblown.

I agree. Although my experience is not as long, I have caught most of my fish when there were no arches seen or recently seen.

 

[Samnjoe]

Seeing a bait ball and some fish arches can be encouraging. However 99% of all the fish I have caught in saltwater in over 25+ years have been when there are zero fish arches on the screen and I have always had good quality equipment. I too think seeing fish arches in the saltwater is overblown.

Absolutely. You are only seeing a small area directly under your boat. Saw very few fish and not a lot of bait in Hardy last week. Lots of fish biting though.

 

[TMan]

Curious to know what the setups are? I absolutely have caught fish when there was nothing on the screen. Currently I’m running Lowrance with their 3in1 transducer but just ordered an Airmar to add on.
When I see this under my boat it’s go time and when it’s like that things happen fast. Really fast!
View attachment 107466

I have a Lowrance Ti with a three in one. Not sure if I could hook a second transducer to it. Does yours have a second, separate jack for a transducer?

 

[Salty338]

I have a Lowrance Ti with a three in one. Not sure if I could hook a second transducer to it. Does yours have a second, separate jack for a transducer?

My elite FS can only take one but the HDS live has 2 ports.

 

[Corey_lax]

I have a Lowrance Ti with a three in one. Not sure if I could hook a second transducer to it. Does yours have a second, separate jack for a transducer?

Depends on the size I think. 7” and smaller have one port. 9” and bigger have two

 

[Dwaynec83]

Since we had good action on undersized springs I’m Pretty sure this is springs feeding on unknown bait this afternoon, Simrad nss evo3 and th185hw 1k transducer

 

[TMan]

Depends on the size I think. 7” and smaller have one port. 9” and bigger have two

I have a 9" screen
I will check it

 

[arich]

Seeing a bait ball and some fish arches can be encouraging. However 99% of all the fish I have caught in saltwater in over 25+ years have been when there are zero fish arches on the screen and I have always had good quality equipment. I too think seeing fish arches in the saltwater is overblown.

It depends on the fish for me. I absolutely look for arches when bottomfishing and looking for rockfish. They show up very well with their large swim bladders. I rarely look for arches for salmon. I look for bait.

 

[cby]

Find the bait, Find the fish. Usually once you find the bait. Troll away from it, bam fish on. its usually on a blank screen and to track bottom.

 

[salmonkiller01]

The Raymarine live guy is running a special episode on this topic June 25. He will post it to youtube after that. Although it is based on raymarine gear, I think most of the info is generally applicable and he's an amazing technical resource. (I'm not plugging raymarine...just sharing some info!)

Going to watch that as I am just using stock setting all auto on my axiom

 

[jackfish]

Going to watch that as I am just using stock setting all auto on my axiom

 

[Charter Tofino]

What I see on the sounder plays a huge factor in what I’m running and how I’m fishing. Simrad Evo.

First pic is Chinook feeding on mature 8+ inch herring. Dense red and can almost see individual Herring arcs on the top of bait school. Below the bait is Chinook arcs and the line coming up is my cannonball after hooking a fish.

Second photo is a nice Chinook feeding on Opal Squid. This was an unusually thick carpet of spawning squid shown on the bottom.

Third shot is my jig going up and down with a Chinook taking a swing at it. That is a more typical thin layer of squid.

Fourth image is a school of Coho feeding on needlefish. When the tides running it can pin needlefish to the bottom and they can be tough to differentiate from squid unless you can look in fish or know the area.

 

[salmonkiller01]

Wrong video for me. I need to learn settings