Re: Finding fish arches
Warren<br />I will try. To start with you are doing the right thing by starting at the default setting. I have seen so many where friends have adjusted everything and there is no hope of getting to work right without setting to factory settings first.<br /><br />It is really simple. After the going to default your unit will be in auto mode and you should get a good bottom signal. Next thing you need to do is decide where you want to see fish so you can set your sensitivy and zoom. As a example if you are fishing for salmon or trout in a lake near the dam then you likely want to find fish in the 15 to 40 foot range. If the water near the dam is 400 feet deep and you set a 4 times zoom then only thing you see on your screen will be water from 300 feet to 400 feet. Since trout and salmon rarely over 50 feet down you will not see any fish.<br /><br />Once you decide where you want to find fish then need to set sensitivy to give strong returns from that area. If you are fishing for bass in the 20 to 30 foot range next to the bottom. Then in auto mode turn up the sensitivy up until you get lots of false readings in the 20 to 30 foot range. Then turn back down until you only see a few.<br /><br />Surface Clarity or surface clutter control will reduce the sensitivy in about the top 1/3 of your screen. This just helps to reduce the black form the top of the screen. Some units you can adjust this setting and some it is on or off.<br /><br />Stop chart, does just that, it stops the screen from updating and most also do not send out any sound signals. It is used to stop the current image you have from scrolling off the screen.<br /><br />Grayline, whiteline, colorline all the same thing. It can be used in lots of ways. A strong return from the bottom with grayline off will be a thick black band. The height of this band tell you how hard the bottom is. Narrow then soft bottom, Wide hard bottom. As you turn the gray line up it will turn the bottom from black to gray except for a thin black line. Now if you have a big sturgeon or shark laying on the bottom it will be more noticeable. Some also say also makes it eaiser to tell a hard bottom form a soft one. When turned off you can sometimes tell the size of some fish like sallmon. This allow you the see the fishes blatter or cavity better.<br /><br />Ping speed or chart speed, This is how fast you send out ping and how long a signal will stay on the screen. Remember only thing under the transducer is the farthest right row of pixels on the display. every thing else is history.<br /><br />auto sensitivy: This is just what it says it is. If you fishing shallow and drift into deeper water the unit will turn up the sensitivy up so you get good returns in the deeper water. If you move and bring the boat up on plane then it will turn the sensitivy down so you can still see bottom and the screen does not go all black form the noise and air bubbles hitting the transducer.<br /><br />Zoom is important when fishing deep water. This will expand the bottom signal to make it easier to see fish near the bottom in deep water.<br /><br />Fish id or fish symbols: turn it off, turn it off, turn it off. All it does is draw a fish symble for any return it see not on the bottom. It could be a bush, a tree lim, a leaf, a plastic bag. Makes as much since as taking a picture of a pretty lady in a bikini and replacing it with a stick symble of a person that you can not tell if it is a man, Woman, child, or dog.
