Marking Fish/old Depth Finder - Theromcline

[BleacherBum28]

I have a very generic depth finder which does display "fish" on the display. Occassionally, the graph just explodes, marking fish all over the bottom, in over 60 foot. My assumption is the P.O.S. doesn't know what the hell I'm doing in a lake that deep and shows fish just to keep me enthused. I can't imagine any game fish that deep, but the I can tell you that whenever my graph shows a nice blank screen, I've rarely caught a fish.

From recent posts here, I assume there is some sort of thermocline in the 30 to 35 foot range. If there is some sort of thermocline, am I to assume fish won't be below this level? If they are deeper than 30, I assume they are down there to cool off and will be back above 35 ft shortly. I've been fishing the upper kings early morning and at dusk and the fish on my graph are scattered from 10 - 40 ft. My boat is terrible in the wind with an underpowered trolling motor, which basically forces me to drift crawlers through any timber or points I know of, but since the fish seem scattered, its been hard to dial in a depth. Any suggestions?

[powerdive]

No weeds = no toxic oxygen-depriving decay = fiish can live below the thermocline. (There are trout all thru the lake, down deep.) Most of the shad that the bass, walleyes, whites, etc. feed on stay above the thermocline, though.

Trust your sonar. Unless it needs a sensitivity adjustment, you probably are seeing fish down there. If the deep "school" seems widespread and pretty flat across the top, your unit might actually be showing you the thermocline. If it's more of a haystack or an irregular bunch of marks, try dropping a jigging spoon down, and maybe you'll find out what they are...

[Lonestar]

Yea, I caught a really nice rainbow near Shell Knob late June.. It was about 35 ft down in 65 ft of water...surprised the hell out of me!

[Guest]

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[A Cubs Fan]

Maybe you should look into getting a better unit. Good luck down there