Sounder help

[krause]

Hi all,

Always looking to learn when it comes to reading my sounder, so anyone who wants to give me a tutorial, feel free.

I was it the other day chasing kings, and we found a few.  I know that nice strong arches (red/yellow centres) are fish, but i also kept reading weaker arches (blue/incomplete) that at times became lines.  They changed depth, appeared and disappeared, and i have no idea what they were. We did get kings amongst the readings, so my question is are they fish? Or something else? See attatched (Note, the inadvertently attatched shows 'weak arches' but these at times just extended out into strata/lines)

Cheers

[Guest Guest123456789]

You might want to obscure longitude and latitude ? 

mid be interested to hear what the more experienced Raiders have to say

[PaddyT]

classic king marks- the intesity of the readout will chage depending on how much they are moving around and where they are sitting in the sonar beam- dont forget the beam is a cone so if they are slightly off to one side they will come up as less intense than if they are sitting in the middle of the beam

[JonD]

Something Ive come to learn from from my 12in gen 3 lowrance is you are still guessing what any fish really are most most of the time.

So out we head to our favourite king grounds around Montague where local very experienced mates are already trying to get among the kings. We too look at our high res screen and see what looks to us like definite kings, our mates some of which are commercial lead liners also state the kings are there but just not biting. Squid, slimys and jigs go over the side carefully being watched on the sounder to see if any of the fish go for the bait or jigs, but nothing.

So over the side my daughter goes and drops down to around 20m and waits among the fish for a couple of minutes. We drift through several of these big schools each of which turn out to be sweep and yakkas, with the sweep showing more as individual fish among the tightly bunched yakkas.

Move to another spot where my daughter starts feeding the sweep which turn on a feeding frenzy around her. This excitement soon attracts a large school of kings which on my screen look exactly the same as sweep. Now I know spearfishing is a no go area on this site but her free-diving skills have not only gained her sponsorship from one of Australia's leading dive shops but she's also picked up sponsorship from Cootacraft boats, so she knows whats she's doing underwater so to speak.

Yes i find fish, I have a pretty good idea what species they may be but this comes more from the ground or area we find them in, as far as pictures on screen go this is just guess work. A gravel bead with soft sponges we often target snapper over in 56m of water will sometimes have nannygai, blue morwong and other reef fish that look just like the snapper. Even at 56m we can watch soft plastics fall beneath the boat and see individual fish leave the bottom to head up and take the plastics, once hooked we have a far better idea what it is.

Ive been on experienced marlin fishermen's boats who state the one large fishing showing on the sounder on a bait-ball is marlin but when we drop our live bait down to the depth this one fish is we get sharked. Hoping and knowing are two different things and the only time I would put money on a fish being the species I hope for is when using sidsecan on low range as you can often see the exact profile shape of the fish.

Just my opinion and I welcome anyone to teach me what exact fish are on my sounder, this would save me using scuba gear.

Edited April 27, 2017 by JonD

[krause]

Hey its no secret spot, not this one anyway. Interesting views, it really does seem like it's a bit of a hit and miss science. It was a real tease on the day because you knew something was down there but they weren't interested.  

When at the side of the cone, aren't they slanted? Hence the arch is formed as it moves through the cone?