Simrad Screen Shots

 

 These screen shots can be clicked on to enlarge.

Deceiving screen shot. 

This shot shows 4 or 5 fish on the sonar 5 to 10 foot deep. They appear to be nice fish due to their color but in fact they are only 12 to 14 inch fish. The reason is they are so close to the transducer and the reflection of the pings is so much stronger at that short distance. The fish at 25 feet are 3 pound Stripers. They appear larger due to the length of the arch but notice the boat is almost still, I am only going a half mile an hour. If they were nicer fish they would also have more color in the center of them. To associate them with the side scan, the A's are the same fish and the B's are the same fish. When you look at side scan the boat is at the top of the side scan screen at the 0 mark. Everything below it is history. On sonar the boat is at 0 and everything to the left of it is history. Presuming I was going .5mph when I popped the picture the B fish are about 30 feet behind the boat. On side scan the darker blue is the water column and at 36.9 feet out either side it picks up the bottom then the beam shoots out to the sides of the boat 120 feet similar to a flood light. I am posting this pic to demonstrate how when using side scan you can see that the B fish are about 5 to 10 [deep] feet from the boat and the A fish are 25 feet [deep] from the boat in the side scan portion of the screen shot.

 In this shot I was running about 25mph when I ran over this hump and notice numerous fish relating to it. I slowed down [you can see the surface clutter on the right side of the sonar page near the surface which is my boat coming off plane] to turn back around and work the fish. When traveling 25mph structure scan still works but does not show single fish at that speed. I use my sonar page primarily to locate fish at higher speeds then once I locate them I use both to get back on them and to determine their size.

In this shot I am marking keeper Stripers between 20 and 25 feet deep clearly on my sonar screen. The fish show up on my side scan as lighter vertical dashes. These are feeding Stripers. They are streaking in the sonar shot [swimming up and down] and wiggly on the side scan view. Notice on side scan some fish are larger than others and on the right side you can actually see the shadows of the fish which indicate larger fish. Side Scan is like shining a flood light out to the sides of the boat, the objects appear lighter and the shadows are behind them. The larger the shadow the bigger the object. If I were looking at structure on the bottom of the lake, I would see the structure clearly and could estimate how high the structure came off the bottom by the size of the shadow behind it.

Although these are screen shots taken off of my Simrad, Lowrance shots are similar. I post these shots to help my clients understand what they are looking at when they are on the water to help them locate and catch fish more proficiently.