Side scan saved the day. the weed, sand and mud edges were easily seen. The little sand dip in the weeds is where we found walleyes. They were on the sand right next to the weeds.
No wind, clear water and sunny. Only bass shallow so we looked deeper and found some at 22 foot.
Top arrow is mud
2nd arrow is sand
3rd arrow is weedlines
Bottom arrow is weed dip
We were using spot lock to cast for walleye and Levi said look at the sonar. I quickly reeled up and dropped my jig and caught a 4 lb largemouth bass. The 2nd photo is the bass swimming away after I released it.
Notice the 2 bright yellow arches (green arrow) in the red bait (black)
I looked at lots of areas and didn't see any fish and caught fish. But here is one example where the fish showed up.
Fish in vegetation, you don't have to see fish to catch them. I often don't mark fish in weeds but still catch them like this one. I spotted the fish with my Aqua-Vu and dropped my bait near the camera!
Green arrow shows nice fish on down imaging but looks small on 2D. It is probably on the edge of the 2D cone and the DI cone is wider so shows the fish better.
Reason to run DI and 2D sonar. I also use Navionics on my Lowrance and LakeMaster on my Humminbird. DI (down imaging) is better in weeds most of the time.
My Garmin PS30 shows the distance to the side the fish are.
Green arrow 3 feet to the left of the transducer which is mounted on boat's mid-line.
White arrow 8 feet to left.
2D sonar only tells you how far off the bottom and that the fish in the cone somewhere.
#6
Red circle fish
Black arrow weeds
Green arrow small boulders on hard bottom point.
Blue arrow bait balls that create shadows on side scan.
This should help get started in interpreting your sonar.
Catching fish you see on side scan is tough since they can move before you get to them but I have a great example.
I was fishing for walleye with spinners, worms and a bottom bouncer in the weeds. I thought I saw the jackpot in the red circle. I moved the cursor over to the fish and created a waypoint on them. The green arrows point out the weeds.
I then trolled through the waypoint in about 1 minute and caught a white bass. Not what I wanted since I was hunting walleyes for an upcoming tournament but a nice example of how to use side scan.
This side imaging image is of a rock point which is man-made.
This rock point is from Devils lake, ND which recently rose and flooded many acres of land.
This image is what it looked like from the air before the water rose. the image is from a Doctor Sonar map chip.
This video is footage from my Aqua-Vu of the tip. Good place to fish?? And somebody left their beer can, bad boy! 30 foot deep and thick ice so not much light for the camera.
Side imaging shows really nice images but how about the real deal and see what it really looks like.
This image shows the shadow of a tree very well even though the tree shows up poorly.
This Aqua-Vu footage shows what the tree looks like with the rocks nearby.
StructureMap is available on the HDS and Carbon but you can share it with the Hook!
If you have logged sonar with a model with side scan you can open it in ReefMaster and export it as map. Think about the value for trolling or anchoring on key structure when the image is your map.
The first image is zoomed out and the 2nd image is zoomed as far as I can with the Hook. Notice the 20 foot scale in the lower right corner for reference.
Since I didn’t have my StructureScan 3d transducer yet I used the Helix Mega to get the side scans. As you can see the MEGA imaging is very crisp.
ReefMaster works with both Lowrance and Humminbird.
If you find tech easy this is a good way to use Spot/Anchor Lock on your favorite reef spot.
Short video on how to use the 3D StructureScan and how to adjust the features and settings.
The first 2 discussions will be my pro staff reviews and the last discussion will be Doctor Sonar's suggestions for interpretation and settings.
