How to Determine Fish Location On March 11, 2014
I get many questions on where the fish on the sonar are in relation to the boat.
The sonar display is mainly history of what you have passed over. What is currently below the transducer (boat) is what is being printed on the far right which I have pointed out with the black arrow on the below image. The red arrow is a fish somewhere behind the boat if the boat is moving forward.
There are 2 factors that affect where that fish is on the screen.
- Speed: If you are going 10 mph vs. 2 mph the fish will 5 times as far behind the boat since the scroll speed doesn’t change.
- Scroll speed: If you set the scroll speed faster the fish will scroll off the screen faster and if you slow the scroll speed the fish will stay on the screen longer.
If you want to determine how far the fish is behind you with the Lowrance HDS models you can place a cursor on the fish (black arrow) and the distance to the fish will show up in the lower left (red arrow) and the chart cursor will show you where the fish are located on the chart.
The next time you wonder where is that fish on the screen, remember it is affected by the boat speed and the scroll speed but you can get an exact reading by putting the cursor on the fish.
