Fish Finder Training – Screenshots & Interpretations

[J-Doc]

Oh and as for bottom structure vs. fish.....

On the image above you see a yellow bottom. that indicates silt I believe. If you see something darker in a blue or red mix on the bottom, it's a fish. If it's a more solid color and not a mix, it's usually a rock and all dark blue I believe.

(correct me if I'm wrong here about colors but the concept I believe I have correct)

[nathanhooper]

are you bouncing your bait off the bottom here?

Honestly I couldn't tell you on this picture. I know I was at one point, but I think this was when I was still in my searching mode. I could be wrong though. I'll post a picture of when I did have my bait out for sure.

Bottom depth actually showed up on this one.

Long blue line is my bait. 1oz sinker, 6' leader after with bait hooked through nose. On the right of the screen you can see the bait come up I am assuming because of whatever it was that was checking it out.

[nathanhooper]

Place SD card in the Machine.... Go to menu then menu then screenshot then press power at anytime to get it....Be sure to do same process to turn off.... Saves as PNG put on your PC go to your phot program and save as a jpg and you are done.

Or my favorite way. Take a pic with your phones send to Facebook and then copy and paste the property and post.

I'll have to look at it again, but I am thinking that I do not have that feature on my unit. Oh well, this works, except I use the bottom color tracking chart mode. It is nice because it keeps the bottom, and anything really hard like a rock, a brownish color in different shades. Then anything else is the normal colored shades.

[J-Doc]

This is what I have found to be typical of stripers and hybrids mixed together

Short fat arches with a bit of an angle. Bass have an eve fatter and steeper slope to the angle.

However, big ole huge stripers over 20-30lbs are going to show a more flat and thick arch like F&F commented on so he is probably correct and that's probably one big striper by itself roaming around vs. a school of smaller ones.

[Feathers and Fins]

Interesting shot, What I see is a thermocline setting up near the bottom. but of more interest is this and im speculating a little ( Assuming an 1oz egg sinker which depending on model is about 1 inch then by blowing up the picture the Big Mark would be approximately 8 to 8.5 inches ) This would lead me to beleive it is a large fish but showed no interest in the bait yet did make the bait highly nervous as you can see it rise above the weight line. Then toward the back you had it move above some other predators. They were smaller in size and in a compact school most likely white or schooly hybrids. I wish this was an LSS2 and we had boat speed to accurately calibrate the sizes.

[J-Doc]

Well said. I agree with the above.

The bait fleeing predators is what we call in the south "wigging out". LOL!

[nathanhooper]

Here is a picture of after it got dark. Again, you can see the clutter start building at the top of the water column. Makes it hard to see things. My bait is up there, at this point we were running 4 poles. One I had up around 15', the other two were between 20' and 30'. You can see a tree coming up on the right hand side...same tree that got my DR ball tuesday night I think.

This is a stones throw from where I caught that striper Sunday evening.

[nathanhooper]

Interesting shot, What I see is a thermocline setting up near the bottom. but of more interest is this and im speculating a little ( Assuming an 1oz egg sinker which depending on model is about 1 inch then by blowing up the picture the Big Mark would be approximately 8 to 8.5 inches ) This would lead me to beleive it is a large fish but showed no interest in the bait yet did make the bait highly nervous as you can see it rise above the weight line. Then toward the back you had it move above some other predators. They were smaller in size and in a compact school most likely white or schooly hybrids. I wish this was an LSS2 and we had boat speed to accurately calibrate the sizes.

Ah, yes, boat speed. I forgot about that. It does make a big difference I am starting to notice. We were crawling. Almost just drifting. I would kick the electric motor on every now and again to keep us in the deeper parts of the water.

[nathanhooper]

Well said. I agree with the above.

The bait fleeing predators is what we call in the south "wigging out". LOL!

You aint kidding! There were a couple of times those little dude's I had on would surprise the heck out of us with their pulling on the pole. Had our hearts going a couple of times thinking this was the time.

[Feathers and Fins]

No dont make me go graph that tree and put on my fins and mask