Fishing Electronics part 3

Fishing Electronics part 3

If you think reading a fish finder is like looking at a television monitor, you have a lot to learn. It would be great if it were that easy. But in reality, reading a graph can be a challenge even to the most advanced fishermen. As mentioned in the previous article, the sonar constantly sends signals in the shape of a cone and whatever gets picked up is displayed at the right side of the monitor. Unless you see a continuous line touching the right side of the monitor, what you see on the screen is no longer in the cone. The majority of what you see is what was under the boat - not what is under the boat. To make matters more complicated, if a fish passes through the cone, you can't tell what direction it came from or which way it went. You also have to consider boat movement. If your boat is stationary and a fish passes through the cone, you know it was the fish that moved. But even if you are stationary, when a wave moves the boat up and down, everything in the cone will also go up and down. The bottom line is that you are always trying to interpret a moving target. Now lets add some more variables to the complexity. What about cone angle, sensitivity, bottom composition, bait fish, structure, thermoclines, different varieties of fish, surface clutter, interference, lures, etc.? We haven't even mentioned features and limitations of particular graphs. What about screen resolutions, chart speeds, fish ID, greyline, ranges, zoom, etc.? These settings will all affect what you see on the screen.