Cool Humminbird Pic

[Guest]

Got this on sunday when the wind was pushing to boat along pretty good.

Water was stained and 49°, there was a little bit of debris floating from last weeks rain.

Mostly all spoonbills.

Bass fishing was poor at best,

Next time around, Im going to drown minnows until something bites.

[Quillback]

That is cool, thanks for sharing.

[jdmidwest]

How about this one

[J-Doc]

I think its cool that you can tell its a spoonbill from Downs an imaging. I was thinking the same thing. "Is that a spoonbill?". You just confirmed it. Sonar has come so very far from flashers and the little fish symbols from many years ago.

[chris3179]

Is the blue and black screen the the down imaging? Sorry in advance if that's a dumb question.

[fishinwrench]

How do you decipher spoonbill from gar? Just curious.

[J-Doc]

I have got to turn the auto correct feature off on my phone. Changes my words all the time. I think the typo is better than the complete mis-use of words.

I meant to say down imaging in the post above.

fishinwrench,

You made me give that photo another hard look. To me, the belly is fatter and more football shaped. A far is pretty straight bellied and doesn't have any curvature in the middle and is pretty consistent from eyes to tail. The spoonbill has an almost dolphin like crest at the transition from eyes to nose and a curvature that best fits this fish arch.

Granted, sonar reads fish as an "arch". Down imaging has a higher sensitivity and increased resolution over conventional sonar. Think of it as the "blue ray" of sonar. :-) Its still sonar, just better resolution. So the arch is more defined helping one "guess" at the species. Its still a guess but a more informed guess in my mind.

To me, if it was a far the shape would be a little more uniform from eyes to tail. You can clearly see where the sonar wave reflection distinguishes a "snout" type nose which is distinguishable from the main body. Also, the fish on the rear image looks as if it is turned towards you slightly and you can still see the nose. I might be "over-reading" that part but it looks like a spoonbill to me.

Dang things look like a shark when they surface. Kinda gives you a "what did I just see?" moment when you see one. Looks like a dorsal fin between their mid-back and tail. I saw one surface just like a dolphin one day. Made me shake my head and say......what was that? Later figured it was a big (I mean big) spoonbill. Beaver doesn't have dolphins so it was the only explanation. :-)

[chris3179]

Thanks. I could have probably got that if I would have read the post above. . I should probably start reading the whole thread before I ask questions.

[J-Doc]

GAR ya dang phone!!! Not "far" Ugh! Lol!

[Guest]

Down imaging and sonar are totally different. DI is similar to an MRI from the medical field. There are no arches with DI. They're dots based on the girth of that fish. If you notice the really small dots closer to the top, those are likely walleye or gar. They have an arch in sonar mode but a dot in DI. I can post a link to doc's article on this.

Btw, those are spoonbill without a doubt. Maybe even 80-100+ pounds