Finding Baitfish On Sonar

[Musky_Madness]

I am trying to slay muskies this fall and am trying to figure out what are the best settings on your depthfinder to find baitfish and hot to seperate it out from the rest of the "clutter". I have an x-15wGPS on the console and an x87 on the bow. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated!

[deerhuntr8]

Using the word "slay" probably wont get you much help, even though I know what you mean. Maybe turn the sensitivity down.

[RK]

HIya -

Not sure about the x-87, but on the x-15, some things you can do... Most of these things are on the menu, I *think* under the sonar settings menu item, or something similar to that.

- you can set the surface clutter to high, which will cut down on the junk near the surface.

- you can set the noise rejection to high. This will clean up your screen quite a bit, but it DOES also reduce some of the accuracy of the picture - you're letting the processor decide what's a real return and what's just 'noise'

- Increase your scroll speed to maximum, and do the same with the ping rate. It will tighten up the arcs so they're a little more distinct.

- Turn off one unit or the other when you're looking for bait. Especially over a soft bottom where the auto-sensitivity cranks up high to get a good return, you can get interference between units, since they run on the same frequency.

- Turn the sensitivity up to around 85% On the x-15 (and most other newer Lowrance units) you can set the sensitivity even in auto-sensitivity mode, and the unit will use that setting as the baseline it adjusts from. I think the factory default is a little low. Turning up the sens. is something I learned from walleye guys looking for suspended bait on Erie.

- turn OFF auto depth range. Set the bottom range manually and you'll get a much bigger picture. If you're in 20' of water and the depth range is at 40', you're only seeing half water and the rest us the bottom and empty screen...kinda useless. If you have that big screen may as well use it. A lot of time when I'm open water trolling I'll set my lower depth range at 30' even if I'm in 60' of water. IF the fish are below 30 I don't care about them because I probably won't get them to bite anyhow...unless it's after turnover late in the fall.

X-15 is a great unit. Had one on my last boat. When you get it dialed in they're amazing. Great thing to do is go find a school of bait then play with settings as you hover over them until you get the clearest picture you can, then remember what you set it at...

Hope this helps...

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[Musky_Madness]

Sorry about the "slay" mentioned above. Certainly not out to kill muskies at all! Strictly C & R as everyone should be. Thanks so much about the x-15 help. I wanna dial in on chasing muskies while they're following the fridge around.