Marking fish in shallow water

[Stick in Mud]

I've heard people say they mark fish on their graphs in shallow water--as in, twelve, ten, even eight feet of water. I spend a lot of time fishing shallow water, and I've never seen (what I know to be) a fish in that shallow of water. Sometimes, in the 15-16 ft depths, I'll pick one up, but never much shallower than that.

Is there a setting I can change on the graph (Lowrance HDS-5, by the way) so I can see these shallow fish?

[CaptainMusky]

Its hard to pick up fish shallower than 10 feet because the cone angle is so small but depending which transducer setting you are using you may have better luck. The hds should have an 83/200 transducer. Using the 200 should yield better results. Many times people mark what they think are fish in shallow water but its actually the signal bouncing off the bottom and being picked up by the sonar. This typically shows a line of fish at the same depth half way down.

[TruthWalleyes]

The structure scan or side imaging units will show you fish in as little as 2' of water.

[Stick in Mud]

Thanks for the advice, Captain...I'll putz around with that over the weekend to see if it makes a difference. Of course, if I'm not seeing fish, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a problem with the locator.

And Truth, the structure scan and/or side imagining units might show fish in as little as 2' of water, but they'd also show up with an overdraft charge from my checking account.

[BobT]

Personally, I think we too often put more faith into fish finding than we should. Consider this.

With a cone angle of 6°…

@ 10 feet deep you will only detect fish in 1 foot diameter area on the bottom of the lake and that area gets smaller as the fish rises in the water column.

@ 20 feet – about 2 foot diameter area.

@ 30 feet depth – just over 3 foot diameter.

@ 40 feet depth – 4.2 foot diameter.

With a wide angle cone of 20°…

@ 10 feet – about 3.5 foot diameter.

@20 feet – about 7 foot diameter. (about the width of your boat)

@ 30 feet – about 10.5 foot diameter.

@ 40 feet – about 14 foot diameter.

There is a whole lot of lake outside that cone. Sonar is more suitable to detecting lake depth, bottom content, and weed lines than finding fish. I don't count an area out just because I don’t see fish directly below my transducer with its tunnel vision.

[TruthWalleyes]

And Truth, the structure scan and/or side imagining units might show fish in as little as 2' of water, but they'd also show up with an overdraft charge from my checking account.

Just about spit some coffee!

True True!!

But it's only ONE overdraft

[Stick in Mud]

Yes, Truth...and if that's the case, I should buy both of them at the same time.

[TruthWalleyes]

Now your thinkin!

Just make sure you put the map card, storage card, ram mounts, linking cables, 2nd transducer, etc all on the same recipt!!

But as far as your origional question...Your right, you pretty much aren't seeing fish in shallow waters with typical sonar transducers.

I've got a HBird Quadra beam transducer sitting on my desk that will though. Just haven't gotten the switch to install it yet.

[reddog]

Fish stratify away from the boat in shallow water. They arent just going to let you run over them, without moving..

SI in shallow water is where its at...

This is precisely why you dont see any of the "Iron Cross" guys shallow..

Which way you gonna cast?

18 feet is a different story.

2D sonar doesnt tell you which side of the boat to jig out of, but SI does..

[kerryd15]

Reddog

is that a 898? What setting are you running? Are you running the speed on the unit as the speed of the boat? or faster? Waiting to get screen images on my 798 like that!! maybe i fish lakes that don't have as many fish!!

[mainbutter]

For kicks I had my fish finder out when I fished the cenaiko opener last year. I had just got my ice fishing transducer and wanted to give it a shot.

In about 10 FOW, my sonar went crazy about two seconds before I had a bite.

But as far as marking fish exactly where they are in 10 FOW or less.. not exactly something I count on.

[kerryd15]

If I anchor or drift I have marked fish in as little as 5 ft. I like to jig right under the transducer like ice fishing. If they don't bite, I know I'm doing something wrong.

[Stick in Mud]

Thanks for the input, guys, and thanks reddog for making me feel even worse about my penuriousness.

[reddog]

Carmike...

"penuriousness" I take that as a compliment Mike. (without looking it up. lol.

[reddog]

Reddog

is that a 898? What setting are you running? Are you running the speed on the unit as the speed of the boat? or faster? Waiting to get screen images on my 798 like that!! maybe i fish lakes that don't have as many fish!!

Kerry, The best thing you could do with your 798, is switch to a HDSI transducer, rather than the compact that came as original equipment..

I have a 997 and an 1197, and there are pictures posted from each unit. The unit with the display on the bottom is the 1197 and the side is the 997.

These units are very, very setting specific. but for the most part, other than a few tweaks I'm using the default settings..

Range , sensitivity and scroll speed are the most important.