[hazmail]

I bought a new sounder (Lowrance colour X515c DF), and as always it's a steep learning curve. I don't think this Lawrance is as good as my old Furuno black/white, which has much better resolution, without the pretty colours??
I found this thread on another site (Australian) and found it quite helpful, and thought maybe it would be a good idea, to start a thread on the same topic here, as most of us are freshwater fishermen, where most of the posts on
Sounder Reading - Ausfish Australian Fishing Forums discuss and show pics of salt-water situations.
Knowing the vast areas of fresh water lakes/rivers there (US), coupled with the huge numbers of guys (and goils) who participate in freshwater fishing, I am thinking there should be a vast amount of knowledge stored up in some heads on here, some of which you might like to post.
I am not wanting to get into a debate on which brand is better, as we all know, basically they all work the same, just different levels of information - I am more interested in analysing what we see on the screen, weather it is Bass, Muskies, or GT's. pete

[Kajan]

I fish coastal, most important thing is high speed reading. Lowrance and Eagle are prob best at shallow water high speed readout. Never tried Garmin though. I know many bass fishermen like humming bird, and I notice they have some fine sonars, but not for high speed, they dont' work. If you fish shallow, prob your best bet is Lowrance. But like I said, I use only depth read out both high speed and while fishing, watch my drop offs with depth instead of chart.

[hazmail]

Kajun - thank you for your reply, yours is the only one in 2 days, maybe they all want to keep their knowledge a secret!! Any information is good information.
I think you are on the money using your yours for only depth. I know if you don't have one on the boat I feel lost, not knowing what depth I'm fishing over.
Thanks again.pete

[Sonny.Barile]

Haz

I have a cheap portable unit from Humminbird. It is a Pirannahmax 10. I dont have a high speed boat so it reads great at full speed. (about 22mph) It came with a suctioncup to hold the transducer on the transom but using it that way means you are limited to slow trolling. I bought a clamp mount for the boat so it stays on at full speed. I primarily fish a saltwater river that has a deep enough channel for large barges and tugs to get through. It is tidal so at times the current can really flow fast and hard. The river is surrounded by swamp marsh for many miles so there is plenty of weeds and plant debris floating below the surface. This can make marking fish a difficult task with false readings. There is so much seaweed and mud at times it can appear that there are two bottoms for long stretches. I only use it to read depth, find droppoffs and structure (mostly humps and stationary weed beds) and to read temerature. Temp is important for migratory striper fishing. On occasion I fish in a large bay known here in Jersey as Raritan Bay. (It is the back side of the famous Sandy Hook) There I use the machine primarily for reading depth while navigating as there are plenty of sand bars that you wouldnt want to hit when at full throttle. That area is what prompted me get one. I was about 150 yards from the shore and travelling at full throttle when I decided to stop and take a look around. I looked down and saw my outboard skegg was about 2 inches off of the bottom. If I had hit a rock at speed it would have been awfully expensive. Most of my bay fishing is done in the shallows so depth and marking fish is not as important as temp while fishing there.

Sonny

[hazmail]

Sonny - when migratory striper fishing, do you motor around the channel until you get the right temperature and then start fishing??
I don't think we get 'stripers' here, looks like a real speed machine. I googled it and all I could get on google Australia, was 'strippers'!!. There is a fish here that looks similar (without the stripes) called 'Mulloway' or 'Dew' fish, which grows to similar proportions (50lb or more) great fighting fish and usually caught at night and is an excellent table fish, need a big table though. By the look of the eyes on stripers, it looks like they would be partial to a bit of night hunting too??pete

[nickcalderone]

Hazmail,
I have used the Eagle Fishmark 480 extensively. It is "simple" by most of todays standards, but I have found it to be remarkably accurate and the settings are easy to adjust once you learn the menus. It works just fine at full speed (about 40 mph) as well as stationary or slow trolling. I have used it in fresh, salt, and brackish water (I live in coastal Alabama) and have been satisfied with the information that it is able to display...but keep in mind, the information is open to interpretation. After I purchased the units (I bought 2, one for the front, and one for the driver seat) I installed them and spent nearly two days on the water just reading the sonar. NO FISHING! Yes, it was tough. Anyway, I found that saltwater required more fine tuning than freshwater...perhaps the density of the water and salinity content. There is a crystal clear freshwater lake not far from here, so, I spent a full day just idling and trolling out there. I was able to visually see down about 30 feet, so, I could see with my eyes whatever the sonar could see. It was very accurate...for the most part. There were a few false readings, or ghost fish here and there. This happened mainly when I would glide over a tree top that had large branches jutting out. Some echo's would come back as fish arches even though I could SEE with my eyes that they were not. I was most impressed though with the ability of the unit to track a jig, dropped vertically, in 30 to 40 feet of water. I could literally see the line "move" on the side of the screen. This is great when you know exactly what depth the fish are holding. As for depth, countours, structure and bottom composition, I was able to get a fairly sharp perspective of what was below the boat, but it did take some time to learn to interpret what I was seeing. It seemed to false alot more often in salt water, although, that could have been more of an adjustment error on my part though. I think that most all of the units (except Humminbirds sidescan sonar) are basically open to your own interpretation and adjustment on your home water. The more time you spend looking at them, the more that you get a "feel" for what is down there. I wouldn't really say that I use it to find fish as much as would say that I use it to find structure and depth. On a side note, Humminbirds side scan units are absolutely amazing! A local guy here was trying his out on the same lake I fish and found a beechcraft cessna airplane on the bottom in 40 feet of water! I posted the story and the images on here a while back. It was like looking at a photograph! I had the opportunity to check one of these units out on the water in a friends boat...and I have to say, these things are far beyond anything else you have fished with. EVERYTHING is displayed with picture perfect clarity...no interpreting necessary. I was thoroughly impressed. So much so, that when I can afford one, I will purchase one. The menus were easy to navigate, and there was SO MUCH DATA. Kinda intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it, you are "hooked".
Anyway, sorry to ramble....just wanted to add my 2 cents.

[rhahn427]

I have several Lowrances ....... my best one is the LCX 111c. It has at least equal if not better resolution than any other DF I have seen including the Furano's. It also has a wide range of colors that are instrumental in telling the bottom type as well as the species of fish that you are seeing. I fish on the Chesapeake Bay (saltwater)and there are many guys that use this and adjust the sensitivity so they can see different colors of part of a mark. This along where they are in the water column tells them what species it is. They say it is the reflection on their bladders. Sounds crazy but I've seen them do it when searching for baitfish. We'd see a school on the bottom and they'ed say they were perch. Drop a bait and perch ....... another school and he'd say spot and they were spot ........ and you could see small differences.

THe Lowrance reads accurately at the 30 MPH my boat cruises at and shows the schools of fish as well as bottom structure and water temp etc and the GPS is very accurate.

One feature I like is being able to mark a GPS waypoint by placing the cursor on a spot on the sonar readout and marking it. THis makes it much more accurate.

Yesterday we fished the shallows where we found them the day before but they were'nt there. Went back to a hump we marked on the way out and search the area and found the fish ....... had a ball on stripers 28-35" (big for the bay this time of year) for a couple of hours and left at dark with fish still on the screen .........

My Lowrance puts us on fish ......

[clamboni]

Eagle 320. Same company as Lowrance.......Not a high resolution unit but fine for shallow water. It was cheap and my other one crapped out on me so I bought it.

Anyway.......It's a good screen shot. The thick line near the bottom is the fish, it's the one that comes straight up in the middle of the screen. Just above there's a very thin line that's my lure. The vertical line is the fish coming up to the boat after he's hooked. I fish like this all winter long in water up to 25 ft. It's great, you can watch the fish move up to hit your lure. Only thing is most of the fish that you can get to move more than 2-3 ft come up and slap the lure really hard but don't get hooked.

Black crappie by the way.

red line is my lure, blue is the fish.


As far as knowing what exactly it is on the screen, the only way to know that for sure is to catch them. You can have a pretty good idea from knowing what one species is relating to on a particular day, but no sure way to know without having the fish in hand. Even the size of the marks can be decieving. Sometimes it'll pick up a big fish near the outside of the cone and only show a little mark. Or small fish will give a strong return and show up as a big mark. One thing though, once you get your unit set up properly and get a little confidence in what it's trying to tell you, TRUST IT. If it's set up right, it won't tell you something's there if it's not. My rule is that if I see fish on the screen, I assume they're the species I'm after unless proven otherwise.

Example of a 8" largemouth showing a big return.

[clamboni]

I'll update this with some more pics within the next couple of months. Most of my really good sonar screens are in late fall/winter.

[Kajan]

Clamboni, nice pics and Nice Sacalait', we have both kinds here, blanc' and black.

Yea sacalait fishn was only time I ever used graph feather. In deep water you can find structure and put jig on fish's head almost LOL.