Depth Sounders, Graphs, and Flashers

[The Fisherman]

We got off on electronics on the Flat thread. So me being bored and really behind the power curve on modern and any electronics though maybe you gee wiz guys could teach me and some of the other guys a thing or two.

1. My first question to anyone would be how in the heck do I tell what kind of bottom is there by the picture on my graph?

2. How do I optimize the settings to get it where I can see bottom changes effectively?

3. Will I have to constantly be changing or will this be a one stop shop?

I know some people don't like to talk about this but I can't see why? You got it...give it up I'll even throw in a salmon trip to the guy that comes and teaches me how to use my electronics in AK. I get you a King Salmon and you show me how to see a thermocline. TEACH ME PLEASE!!!

Thanks a lot for your involvement guys, it means a lot to this soldier and a couple others that I think I got hooked on our little secret!

Joshua Douglas Travis

[John Bales]

Morning Josh, Knowing how to set up your unit so you get what you want is a lot like everything else is in life. Some things you figure out for yourself and that may take a life time and some things you are shown by someone else. In my case, I was lucky to be able to have smart friends who showed me what to do. The depth finder guy was a tournament guy so dont shun them for that reason. He chewed my ass out when he saw me have my unit on auto. I showed him how to speed up his scroll speed, so we are even. Time out. More later. The boat is hooked up and the wife is out of the shower and ready to go catch a musky. One good one or two will get my goat but will take what ever the lake offers today. Will get on here tonight for some real depth finder action. John

[The Fisherman]

Thanks for the thoughts Mr. Bales, and I certainly know what you mean about taking a lifetime to learn(even though mine is early) I do however find myself at a loss when it comes to having any friends in AK that can show me this stuff. So my friends on here will more then suffice. Oh and you really must be getting up in years Mr. Bales, your forgetting that I can't possible shun a tournament guy when I have been know to fish a few as a "who in the heck is that kid in that john boat" ! But either way, I would love to have some information from you.

Hope that your "lucky" today on the musky, sure wish I was there!

Josh

[jwt]

Bring it on John! I'll be watching and taking notes. Hope you caught a couple of nice "goats" today.

[John Bales]

No musky today. A half a dozen hits. One three pound white bass and a 6lb channel catfish. All on the JB2 and most hits came from 40 to 50 feet. Mostly at 50. Thermocline is completely gone. Now all we need is some stable weather and the fish will go good. Debs birthday is tomorrow and I wasnt going to go be she said I could so I might get out for a little while.
Ok......... All depth meters come pre set from the factory. In this way, every type fisherman can use it and it works and gives readings and changes depths automaticly and everyone is happy. Except for a guy who knows this. This is where you start. There is a mode for auto and one for advanced usage. When you put it on advanced mode, you automaticly get more options to choose from. I start on the sonar mode. On a unit with two transducer cones, always choose the narrowest cone. Most are 20 degree and 60 degree. Chose the 20. It will show breaklines better. Go down and look at every one of your choices. Fish ID bull crap, turn off, noise reject stuff, turn off. The more you filter out noise, the less you see. There are two modes on a hummingbird. One is called max mode and the other is clear. On clear you have little power so use max mode. Any thing that you leave turned on will make your depth meter have to think more and that will slow your scroll speed down. Your depth meter is a computer and the more you give it to do, the more it must compute and this all takes longer and makes it slower. Turn off anything you dont need. Here is how you make the scroll speed faster. On a hummingbird, there is a place to control your scroll speed. Put it on max. This is not the secret!!
Now, you can set your graph to any depth you want for the situation. For instance, if you are fishing a shallow lake with good color and you know you are not going to be fishing over 20 feet, set your upper limit to 0 and lower to 20 feet. Here is the key. Every unit is designed to go from 0 to 1200 or 0 to 1500 or what ever. There is a mode that shows you that your unit is set up to go to 0 to 1200 feet. If you look, it will say auto. Change that number to what ever you have set your unit to read. For instance, we just set our unit to read from 0 to 20. You now change the 0-1200 feet to 20 feet also. Your screen will right away start flying. It might be so fast that it may become blurry. In this case, go back to the original screen and slow down your scroll speed until the bottom reading becomes clear.
The deeper you have it set, the slower it will scroll across because it takes longer for the siginal to return. The shallower , the faster. You then change the actual scroll speed to your liking. When your unit was on auto, it was actually taking the time to think to 1200 feet and then we changed it to 20 and the thinking became faster. Most of the equipment on the new units is for show. It sells. Once you get your unit set up, the only changes you make will be changing the depths from 0 to what ever suits you per lake type and water depths that you will be fishing and then the sensativity.
Josh, you can plainly see the thermocline by turning up the power till it shows up. Simple as that. In the summer it shows up just as clear as a bell and you can see exactly how the fish are related to it. They will also show zooplankton. Fish relate to that also.
Sensativity.......... You only turn up the sensativity till you get a good bottom reading and till things start to clutter up and then turn it down just a notch. When fishing the muck line in florida, you turn your sens........ way down. If you do not do this, you will never see the muck line. Too much power is not good in this case. Hard bottom will be a thin line. Soft will be thicker. You can see it and feel it with your lure. Dont take long at all to get used to it. Thats about it. John

[The Fisherman]

Mr. Bales,

I will write more in response later, but thank you. We got rockets shot at us all night and I'm the guy who gets to go safe the ones that don't explode so its nine am here and I just ate dinner but it sure tasted like breakfast to me!

Josh

[The Fisherman]

OK I'm a little more awake now got a big whoopin 45minutes of really interrupted sleep!

So just turning it on ain't good enough...go figure! But I really appreciate you taking your time to put that information on here. Cant wait to put it to practice, I know that those lakes in AK have to get on hell of a thermocline. That could also answer some of the questions that I was having with the deeper structures in lakes with only rainbows?

Trying to kinda sum up what you wrote here so that it fits my brain Mr. Bales;

1. Advanced User Mode, NOT AUTOMATIC!
2. Sonar Mode, adjust for smallest cone size of transducer, thus showing a crisper image.
3. Ensure that all extra crap is off; ie: fish ID, noise cancel, etc.
4. Adjust Max depth(?) at a maximum, your sonar should be searching no deeper then the deepest water you will be fishing. Doing this is what speeds up your scroll speed(?) I assume that this is basically the refresh speed of the screen or sonar?

5. Thermocline: adjust power up until you see it.
6. Sensitivity: I think that I understand what your saying here but I feel I really don't know what I'm looking for. To adjust I go up until I see a good bottom and things start to get cluttered, then down a notch. Well I only assume and we know what that does that the "clutter" part is just that, a bunch of crap on the display. I just have never paid attention to what my depth sounders were saying about anything besides the depth of the water I was in.
7. Bottom conditions:
-Hard Bottom will show up as a thin line on the bottom.
-Soft Bottom will show up as a thick line on the bottom.

That is more thinking about electronics than I have ever done! I'm getting one of those DSI from lowrance, thought they look really cool. So this will make all the difference in the world. You know actually knowing how to use the equipment you have So thanks again Mr. Bales for the information here.

If there is any chance, some pictures of: hard/soft bottoms and a thermocline would be awesome

Also, is the flasher setting on a graph as effective as a flasher itself?

Joshua Douglas Travis

[John Bales]

Would not get a dsi. why? Fish show up as little dots. You can hardly see them. Ask Kenny what he thinks of one. You never asked me what unit you should buy . John

[The Fisherman]

I certainly meant no disrespect with not asking you Mr. Bales, and certainly apologize for not. I can see where you are coming from about not getting one, but I did have ulterior motives when I purchased it. That is why I was asking about the graph function on a regular sounder. Katie is letting me go ahead and get everything that I want for my boat/guide service, so that is one of the reasons that I started this thread. If I can accomplish the same things that I've seen you do with your flasher with a graph that has GPS then I will go with one those. If not then I will get both a flasher and a standard graph that has GPS.

So I really hope that not asking your opinion on the DSI didn't get you too mad....I have more questions!

For starters on standard graphs, Hummingbird or Lowrance? Also is there any customer service comparison? The only customer service experience with them that I've had was with H.B. They were happy to replace my Dads old flashers with no questions asked, and these were 35 years old at the time.

Thanks Again Mr. Bales,

Josh

[spnplgrkenny]

Josh, This is a partical change bottom on my depth finder, hard bottom on left, soft on right.

[The Fisherman]

Well that is certainly a change in thickness on the bottom line. You said that it is hard on the left and soft on the right so obviously fitting directly where Mr. Bales said thick=soft and thin=hard. With that being the case, I always find myself asking why? So I only imagine from my basic understanding of how this stuff works that the hard bottom shows up as a thin line due to the fact that most of the sonar waves are reflected back at the same time~uniform and quick, giving it a thin line. The reverse being for a soft bottom, the sonar is reflected back at a gradual rate due to the soil/bottom density giving it a thicker line. Is that why that change occurs?

Now you also said that it was a "particle change" I could through a million guesses here but I'll only show my loss with one. Are you referring to a build up of particulate matter; ie: organic material or what ever. As being the cause for this change in the hard to soft bottom that your graph showed?

Thanks a lot Kenny for the pictures, it is appreciated.

Josh

[spnplgrkenny]

Josh, Alot of dishpan lakes, are relatively gradual sloping lakes,especially in flatter parts of the country.. Any where there is a change in depth, through the years, the sediment will gradually slide down the gradual slope towards the deepest water, leaving a different texture around the top. Occasionally you will find a hard bottom in the deeper section, generally caused by current flow, leaving hard in the bottom and soft toward the shallower area, If you find this situation, don't pass it up. Sometimes, partical change bottoms will get rearranged due to big storms, but eventually return, in time. Also, some dishpan lakes seem to be, all hard bottom. The first thing that I look for when fishing these type lakes is obviously, good water color, then water over 10 ft.. If the water color is less than good (brown cypress), I would prefer that it has water quiet abit deeper than 10 ft. to help offset some of the light.

[Steve Craig]

Josh,
It is my personal opinion that the DSI DOES show me a better picture of the bottom, hard/soft, than regular sonar.
Out here, I look for the DIRT in an otherwise rock/hard environment. I need to be able to see that soft dirt areas. I just like the DSI better, and the very clear pics it shows of said bottom.
And John is correct, the fish show up as white dots. The bigger the dot, the bigger the fish.
I have run both the DSI and sonar side by side, and both show me the fish. One has arches, and one has the dots.

Listen to what John wrote about setting up your unit. He explained all this at the Jamboree with me and Mike Brown, while setting up Mikes unit.
I went and did mine that night and it is the truth and the way to go.

Another place for very good info is Dr. Sonar. This place deals with mostly Lowrance setup.
The address is:
http://www.hightechfishing.com/structure.html

And another great article is:
http://www.ultimatebass.com/bass-fishin ... ic=85546.0

I have found there are advantages, and disadvantages to to both HB and Lowrance.
I now have one of each and the best of both worlds. Both MUST be set up properly to get Maximum out of your unit.
If either one is not setup correctly, then you will have problems.
This is only my opinion here, so take it FWIW.
Steve

[John Bales]

Josh, You can buy a unit that offers both dsi and graph and maybe a flasher unit all in one. Might cost you a bit but then you can use what you like and get used to. A lot of what a person likes is how much you use it and then you either build confidence in it or not. Kenny loves his old unit and I have used one of them for a season and I too loved it but not enough to keep it. Kenny gave it to me and I didnt want to break it. I like what I have, have a lot of confidence in the unit and know how to use it. It is an aid to my fishing and learning, just like any other tool. John PS...... Bill, Duplex catches a couple of hundred pounds of fish and he gets cocky. You will have to forgive him. This is only his second season of fishing when it is colder than 70 degrees. I tried to tell him years ago what he was missing. He just dont listen. It takes him so much longer than most to absorb something into his brain. It's not his fault.

[jwt]

John,
Thanks for the tips on setup. Never thought about it (Duuuh), but the graphs are run by a computer, and the more it has to check the longer it takes to get a result and display it on the screen, e.g. in auto mode for depth, checking depth and comparing that with the depth where it should change shallower or deeper.

Josh,
I have an older Lowrance LMS 480M(monochrome) SONAR/GPS unit. The bottom condition is distinguished with the "Grayline", i.e. hard bottom, strong signal, wide Grayline, and soft bottom, weak signal, narrow Grayline. I haven't messed with it in flasher mode because I have a a Vexilar three-color FL-8; red is hard bottom and it goes through orange to green as the bottom gets softer. From Vexilar:

Soft bottoms tend to absorb a certain amount of the sonar's signal, while hard bottoms bounce back a greater percentage of the signal. Therefore the resulting signal of the flasher will reflect these differences. Hard bottoms will be displayed on the flasher as having a wider band of red, while soft bottoms will show as a narrower green band. The other tell-tale sign of a hard bottom is the appearance of a double-echo. This second echo occurs anytime the flasher passes over a hard bottom. It appears on the sonar simply as another bottom reading twice the depth as the true bottom reading.

Hope this helps add to our pool of information.