Kayak Sonar Discussion

[Sheephead]

Great thread idea Chris! I love how your naming your sonar marks too!



For the first two pictures I'd like to welcome everyone to the promised land.

The third picture is a good example of how bait reacts to a school of yellowtail. Even if your not marking yt if you see bait behavingg this way you can tell if fosh are around.

Lastly, the 4th pic shows a single yt swimming through a small school of red crab. Yes my settings suck! For yhe 4th pic.

[jbl_91762]

Originally Posted by Sheephead

Great thread idea Chris! I love how your naming your sonar marks too!



For the first two pictures I'd like to welcome everyone to the promised land.

The third picture is a good example of how bait reacts to a school of yellowtail. Even if your not marking yt if you see bait behavingg this way you can tell if fosh are around.

Lastly, the 4th pic shows a single yt swimming through a small school of red crab. Yes my settings suck! For yhe 4th pic.

Thank you so much Chris for posting this and not sure why its not yet a sticky!! I've learned more from this post then any youtube vids I watch to learn as I am new to this. I didn't have the funds for a better FF but only have a Garmin Striker 4 and have no clue how to decipher except for bait and seaweed around Corona Del Mar.

Now 1st 2 pics those images are full of fish I presume? 3rd I would think was the sonar picking up your line dropped?? Please explain further.
Also anybody have a link to a really good youtube that explains more as I learn better with vids but have seriously learned from seeing these images also. Please keep it coming.

[Sheephead]

Originally Posted by jbl_91762

Thank you so much Chris for posting this and not sure why its not yet a sticky!! I've learned more from this post then any youtube vids I watch to learn as I am new to this. I didn't have the funds for a better FF but only have a Garmin Striker 4 and have no clue how to decipher except for bait and seaweed around Corona Del Mar.

Now 1st 2 pics those images are full of fish I presume? 3rd I would think was the sonar picking up your line dropped?? Please explain further.
Also anybody have a link to a really good youtube that explains more as I learn better with vids but have seriously learned from seeing these images also. Please keep it coming.

Pics 1 and 2 are the promised lands. Fish you drop on and instantly get bit by.
Pic 3 was a really cool experience. Yes, you can see my bait being dropped down towards the school of feeding YT but the pattern was so specific this day that it was hard to get bit. The yellow/orange dense dots on the bottom is bait, in this case red crab. On the left side of the picture you can see the school expanding into mid water column and rising up off the bottom as soon as the YT were out of range. The crab were being pushed off the bottom by a school of rockfish, halibut, bass, you name it. As soon as the YT came through again the crab school would get pushed back to the bottom (you can clearly see the school of YT swimming above the school of crab densely packed on the bottom). Towards the right end of the picture you can see the school of YT swimming directly into the suspended school of crab that wasn't quick enough to get back towards the bottom.

Im guessing the reason the YT were able to separate the school is because the crabs don't have lateral lines and because they were the furthest away from where the Yt entered the school they had less time to react to their presence.

[chris138]

Originally Posted by jbl_91762

Thank you so much Chris for posting this and not sure why its not yet a sticky!! I've learned more from this post then any youtube vids I watch to learn as I am new to this. I didn't have the funds for a better FF but only have a Garmin Striker 4 and have no clue how to decipher except for bait and seaweed around Corona Del Mar.

Now 1st 2 pics those images are full of fish I presume? 3rd I would think was the sonar picking up your line dropped?? Please explain further.
Also anybody have a link to a really good youtube that explains more as I learn better with vids but have seriously learned from seeing these images also. Please keep it coming.

Thanks JBL. Doesn't matter to me if it's sticky or not... as long as people want to keep discussing sonar theories and application, the thread will stick around.

Here's your rabbit hole, should you chose to take the blue pill...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q9izOwp1aU&t=4749s

[surfishiron]

hey Chris or Greg, whats your interpretation? Mine was YT balling up bait in the left corner and maybe pushing it low on the right of the screen. Any help is appreciated. FYI this is the best post ever!!!! Sticky for sure!!!yt.jpg

[ful-rac]

Originally Posted by surfishiron

hey Chris or Greg, whats your interpretation? Mine was YT balling up bait in the left corner and maybe pushing it low on the right of the screen. Any help is appreciated. FYI this is the best post ever!!!! Sticky for sure!!!Attachment 22380

Taking in account your depth, I would say most likely it's not yellowtail. It's quite possible it might be depending upon the location you are fishing. You have your FF setting on Medium Chirp and are in shallow water so everything is going to be a bit stretched out, making objects appear to be larger than they would be on High Chirp. Also a wider cone angle covering more area thus displaying more information or more objects in the same amount of space. To me if I saw that on my FF at this current time in the area I fish, I would interpret that more than likely as Bonita, mixed with those little yellows that have been around lately, chasing around bait.

Providing key information might help...

Where were you fishing?
What kind of structure is nearby?
When was the screen shot taken?
Did you catch anything?

You never really can know with absolute certainty of what your seeing on your fish finder unless you are actually catching what you are seeing. And even then the other fish or objects you are seeing on screen can be something completely different from what you are catching. With local knowledge of an area, where certain species are known to congregate, this information can help to narrow down what your seeing on screen can likely be or likely not be.

[surfishiron]

Originally Posted by ful-rac

Taking in account your depth, I would say most likely it's not yellowtail. It's quite possible it might be depending upon the location you are fishing. You have your FF setting on Medium Chirp and are in shallow water so everything is going to be a bit stretched out, making objects appear to be larger than they would be on High Chirp. Also a wider cone angle covering more area thus displaying more information or more objects in the same amount of space. To me if I saw that on my FF at this current time in the area I fish, I would interpret that more than likely as Bonita, mixed with those little yellows that have been around lately, chasing around bait.

Providing key information might help...

Where were you fishing?
What kind of structure is nearby?
When was the screen shot taken?
Did you catch anything?

You never really can know with absolute certainty of what your seeing on your fish finder unless you are actually catching what you are seeing. And even then the other fish or objects you are seeing on screen can be something completely different from what you are catching. With local knowledge of an area, where certain species are known to congregate, this information can help to narrow down what your seeing on screen can likely be or likely not be.

First of all thank you to all that replied this is valuable info that i appreciate from the community. To answer Tony's questions I was fishing my super secret spot you probly don't know it is call La Jolla. Named by the Germans in 1903, there was structure nearby roughly 100-200 yards, screenshot was very recent, I caught several bonies and one YT. I never thought about depth when is came to sonar readings and or my settings in shallow vs deeper water. Appreciate the input from those more experienced than myself. Also never thought of using a different chirp setting based on my depth due to the fact that I usually fisht 70+ to 200. Once again thank you and I cant wait to bring more screen shots to this threat.

[chris138]

Originally Posted by surfishiron

hey Chris or Greg, whats your interpretation? Mine was YT balling up bait in the left corner and maybe pushing it low on the right of the screen. Any help is appreciated. FYI this is the best post ever!!!! Sticky for sure!!!Attachment 22380

for sure that's some bait balled up on the left... but not necessarily being predated on. Could just be really tight feeding on zooplankton. Definitely some faster, harder bodied fish cruising through there, but I would tend to agree with Tony that they don't look yellow for how shallow you are. could be you are catching the edge of a couple bigger fish swimming in the periphery of the cone. Settings look good though, other than being sideways your return has good target separation.

[GregAndrew]

Originally Posted by surfishiron

hey Chris or Greg, whats your interpretation? Mine was YT balling up bait in the left corner and maybe pushing it low on the right of the screen. Any help is appreciated. FYI this is the best post ever!!!! Sticky for sure!!!Attachment 22380

I would also agree that they do not look like large predators. The two schools of bait are different species on left and right. Left side I would bet are either Sardines or Herring. Right side I would bet on Spanish, but there are several other species that might fit that bill. Certainly not Greenies (color would be similar to the Left side and bigger marks), although the predators could be the larger versions of those.

[Denis_Ruso]

Originally Posted by surfishiron

hey Chris or Greg, whats your interpretation? Mine was YT balling up bait in the left corner and maybe pushing it low on the right of the screen. Any help is appreciated. FYI this is the best post ever!!!! Sticky for sure!!!Attachment 22380

I'll take a crack at it. Looking like a baitball on the beginning then looks to be a more like school of blue perch that hang out in the kelp at LJ. Not looking like YT marks to me, arches are too small and movement is too scattered.

[Newguyhere]

Does anyone have setting suggestions for hook 2 5 splitshot if I'm 100+ feet. Could not seem to figure it out. At all.

[Newguyhere]

Pics

[TJones]

Originally Posted by Newguyhere

Pics

. that does not look good at all. you got some sore of interference. bad wire, bad ground, maybe bad transducer? try running demo and see what happens if that unit has this option? check your transducer plug and make sure it is seated well. no matter what you did with settings, your screen should not have that fuzzy bar. in another thread you had mentioned that you were loosing picture after a certain depth. check your depth settings and leave it on auto. you it is set at manual of 100' and you go out of range, the unit will go haywire.