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Help with what I saw on my fish finder???

 
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Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/12/2008 2:01:24 AM   
cjbs2003


Posts: 97
Joined: 1/29/2008
Status: offline 		OK, this past week I finally got back to PA to fish Raystown Lake and a few other places I used to fish when I was in college. I focused mainly on Lake Trout in Raystown as I got new downriggers and had never caught a Lake Trout while using downriggers before. I did catch a few while jigging during the trip but couldn't seem to master the lake trout on downrigger thing. But, my question is this, while trolling I would occasionally come across a section of the lake often in very deep water with TONS of what appears to be baitfish from 120 to over 160 ft deep? What in the heck kinda fish is at those depths this time of year? If they aren't fish, what is wrong with my fish finder or is it giving me a bad reading? I posted a pic to help in figuring this mystery of mine out... Thanks! Oh yeah, any advise on the mastering lake trout while downrigging would be appreciated as well.




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< Message edited by cjbs2003 -- 5/12/2008 2:07:39 AM >

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What ever floats your boat, just keep it on your side of the lake...
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RE: Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/12/2008 2:55:42 AM   
pghmarty


Posts: 4288
Joined: 12/5/2004
From: Bradford Pa then Pittsburgh
Status: offline 		If you are moving very slow or using a wide beam transducer you might be showing the same fish a few times on the screen.

Adjusting chart speed might help.

http://www.humminbird.com/support/FAQ.aspx?faqid=72

Open 757c Combo
Page 67:


(in reply to cjbs2003)
Post #: 2
RE: Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/12/2008 7:03:04 AM   
jlh42581


Posts: 4375
Joined: 10/13/2004
From: Milesburg, Pa
Status: online 		I have a question about something similar. Why do they show up in the bottom? I noticed this in the shallows on my fish finder and assumed it was bass on beds. Whats the deal with that?

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Jeremy
http://www.outdoorintegration.com

"The flies used for so discriminating a fish as the trout should, first of all, have the appearance of life."

(in reply to cjbs2003)
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RE: Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/13/2008 7:10:11 AM   
earlysecond

 

Posts: 144
Joined: 11/24/2007
Status: offline 		Cj,

Just recently, I learned how to effectively dial in my Eagle finder on full manual.  I can't even tell you how much of a difference it makes.  So much so that when we were fishing for crappie this past weekend I could pretty effectively predict when we would catch fish as the school moved under the transducer!  If you would put your finder on manual, adjust the sensitivity and troll between 1 and 1.5 mph you will find perfectly shaped fish arches just like you see on finder demos.  This tends to be much more accurate as you will be able to distinguish fish from underwater structure more readily.  Fish show as small, single arches and trees or other structure show as mutiple, stacked arches.  NOW my prediction, depending on where you were and what appears on your underwater structure map. . .I have a feeling that you MAY be looking at large, underwater trees that have remained in tact for a very LONG time.  This happens, as you know, when air cannot rot them.  Especially when they are at that depth.  NOW if you were fishing where there were never ANY trees my therory is wrong!  Next time you are bored when fishing, take the Fish ID off and go to full manual, set the sensitivity manually until most of the "noise" (pixels without meaning) clean up right under the surface.  If you are moving, even a decent drift pace, you WILL see arches.  If you a sitting still, you will see clearly visible lines, even in shallow water, these are FISH. I can't tell you what kind though.

I am jealous that you caught lake trout!  Post up some pictures please.

If I think of it today, I will take some picutes of the graph screen on full manual and show you what I mean.  We will be hunting crappies and shallow walleyes.

Brent

(in reply to jlh42581)
Post #: 4
RE: Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/13/2008 7:59:09 AM   
dozer

 

Posts: 41
Joined: 3/20/2006
Status: offline 		suckers . try an get one

(in reply to earlysecond)
Post #: 5
RE: Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/13/2008 10:56:05 AM   
salmotrutta


Posts: 1128
Joined: 8/3/2005
Status: online 		Fish actually show up on those things? Pretty cool. Must make it allot easier?

(in reply to dozer)
Post #: 6
RE: Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/15/2008 1:35:57 PM   
cjbs2003


Posts: 97
Joined: 1/29/2008
Status: offline 		Thanks for the help on the fish finder... I am getting ready to head over to Lake Anna here in VA in about an hour. So I will play with the finder a bit and see if I can tune it in. Like I said, I just started using this finder and REALLY need to learn to play with it. When you meantioned those HUGE schools of fish may actually be dead still standing trees, I think you may have hit it on the head. Never thought of that til you mentioned it! Lake Anna here in VA had all the trees removed so I will see what I get myself in to today with that... Crazy thing about that fish finder is when I am trolling I can see the downrigger weights on the screen so I know the exact depth I am at and when I am jigging I can actually see the jig going up and down on the screen. Shoot, I could actually see the lake trout come up and hit my jig! Now that was cool! Here is a pic of one of the lakers I caught. Enjoy!




< Message edited by cjbs2003 -- 5/15/2008 1:53:43 PM >

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What ever floats your boat, just keep it on your side of the lake...

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RE: Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/17/2008 12:32:04 PM   
polar bear

 

Posts: 44
Joined: 4/23/2006
Status: offline 		......
Here is another example of a Laker off the Rigger..............

< Message edited by polar bear -- 5/17/2008 12:33:17 PM >

(in reply to cjbs2003)
Post #: 8
RE: Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/17/2008 8:47:25 PM   
accordbw

 

Posts: 36
Joined: 4/10/2008
Status: offline 		Thats pretty cool! How deep is raystown?  I didn't realize it was over 150 feet deep from what you are seeing on the depth finder. I only fished it one time ever and that was from shore though.

(in reply to polar bear)
Post #: 9
RE: Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/17/2008 9:47:38 PM   
boatnik13

 

Posts: 199
Joined: 3/15/2005
Status: offline 		Lets go back to the words "FISH FINDER", Thats the sales pitch! They really are depth finders and some of you may want to visit lowrance site to see how they operate. Remember that they are sending a signal out and reading the return of what return the cone picks up. The deeper you go the more loss of return signal , also soft bottoms don't return very good signals over deep water. So everything between "A" & " B" is recorded if its returned and the density determins if its a notible fish or not. The depthfinder really doesen't know if its a fish > it just records it that way. Depending on the units power> it may or may not seperate the item from the bottom structure in order to declair it a fish.If the unit claims 2" target seperation > thats only in the first 30 ft. or so not 150 ft. depths. Just ask the Mfc. of your unit. Don't use the "FISH ICON " as in the above post picture. This is not a fish finder and the unit is displaying everything as a fish icon thats not attached to the bottom. Air bubbles from ground release and springs are displayed as fish and also decay of old leaves and branches as someone mentioned above.Make sure the boat is moving because they are all poor still camera's. All depthfinders give false signals! don't believe it ? add a underwater camera to the unit and you will be a believer.  The lake does have rainbow smelt ( they can go deep ) and the lake has a very good oxygen source for deep water fish as the lake will go better than 180 ft deep at the dam but may not hold fish deeper than 150'. All manmade lakes in this State suffer oxygen loss at its base.
I use the underwater camera  with diffrent depthfinders of Humminbird and lowrance as I map lakes in lower South Central Pa. Structure,food source, and water temp. make up most of a fishes comfort zone and thats what you need to locate insted of fish icons . Just my opinion!

(in reply to accordbw)
Post #: 10
RE: Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/17/2008 10:47:34 PM   
salmotrutta


Posts: 1128
Joined: 8/3/2005
Status: online 		Nice fish men. Polar Bear- looks like your boy is having some good times with you. 

(in reply to boatnik13)
Post #: 11
RE: Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/18/2008 12:55:06 AM   
cjbs2003


Posts: 97
Joined: 1/29/2008
Status: offline 		Yeah, I have been playing with my finder, putting the fish icon on and off. It can help you locate fish I think, but you have to know what you are doing a bit to recognize what is and isn't fish. I have had a lot of luck using it on the Potomac River here in VA to locate schools of shad and then hammer the blue cats and stripers that hold around them. I still think it is pretty neat to see your jig falling up and down on the screen. Raystown is such an interesting fishery, I wish I lived closer to it. But again, distance makes the heart grow fond I suppose... As far as how deep Raystown Lake is, the deepest I ever saw was 186 ft. From what I understand, in the summer anything much deeper than 80 ft in Raystown is a dead zone due to lack of oxygen. But most lakes that stratify will be that way. That is what makes the Great Lakes and some of the finger lakes so awesome, no matter how deep you go there is oxygen. Then again they are not man made... Thanks for all your help on this subject!

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What ever floats your boat, just keep it on your side of the lake...

(in reply to salmotrutta)
Post #: 12
RE: Help with what I saw on my fish finder??? - 5/28/2008 10:00:42 PM   
earlysecond

 

Posts: 144
Joined: 11/24/2007
Status: offline 		I was remembering this post recently.   Fisrt off, thanks for the pics.  It makes me want to chase some of those critters!  As promised, I did take a pretty fish arch picture just off of the Aitch boat launch.   On full manual, the screen was full of arches! Unfortunately, my camera, with the given light did not take a picture that I could see!   Some good points were made about the limitation of these units.  Just this week, on of my fishing buddies got an aqua view and he really thinks that this will help us to get a better handle on the whole sonar issue.  I can't see how it will hurt but time will tell.  Think about how many time the fish win the war! As the top predator on the food chain, we have sonar to cover a bunch of water and eliminate "dead" stuff, we have cameras to send down and see what kind of fish are schooled up, PLUS we have all the shared experience from all of the fisherpeople who have gone before us who wrote important stuff down!!  YET after a boat that cost 10K, a tank of gas that cost 25 bucks (yeah BTW who ever thought you could fit $25 in a little orange outboard tank?) , tackle that adds up to thousands, another thousand in GPS, sonar and a camera, $20 of live bait. . .we can see the little b4%T$&@s but still cannont even snag one!!  That is why they call it "FISHING"  Buy the way. . .do not EVER do the math on what the fish you catch by these methods, with this equiptment costs.  One time my neighbor figured it out at 7K/lb because he only got out on his brand new Ranger bass boat 3 time is 3 years before his wife made him sell it one of the 3 times out he caught a single, 3lb bass !! LOL

Good Luck, sometimes we complicate it more than is necessar (I am the single biggest offender)


Brent

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