Understanding fish and trees on sonar Posted on October 13, 2019

Understanding Downimaging/2D sonar with Aqua-Vu training Posted on September 07, 2018

What is the blue specks and what are the bumps?

Watch video for Doc's explanation.

Fish or weeds? Posted on July 15, 2018

Just another example on why down imaging helps sonar interpretation. The weeds look similar to fish.

 In this one the fish look like weeds.

How to find your fishing spots with your Aqua-Vu Posted on June 02, 2017

I use sonar to find fish every time I go out but sometimes the fish can hide. Two good examples are boulders and steep drop-offs. The sonar beam is reflected off the bottom on steep drops and off the boulders and the fish can’t be separated.

I drove over this drop-off that had boulders and didn’t see any fish with either the Humminbird or the Lowrance.

I stopped on the edge and used the Spot Lock feature of my Minn Kota trolling motor on the edge and dropped my Aqua-Vu camera down and found these crappies but not just here but each time I moved along the edge there were more crappie.

Watch crappie video here

Even the down imaging couldn’t separate the crappies from the boulders while I was sitting over them.

Notice the crappies are very close to the boulders in the video.

They did bite and they posed for the camera before being released (I had fresh walleye back home).

Down Imaging and 2D sonar for Understanding Sonar Posted on June 30, 2016

Don’t miss supper, get better at sonar and fish where there are fish. Use the splitscreen sonar and down imaging and compare the two and you will become an expert.

Down imaging has a narrow wide cone and the 2D sonar has a round cone so they view targets differently and comparing the two makes interpreting sonar much easier.

This image is showing trees and the 2D sonar on the left is difficult to interpret but the down imaging shows the trees well.

This image shows fish on the side of a boulder but the down imaging shows 2 fish and I get much more excited seeing two fish than one.

This image shows 2 bait balls in weeds (yellow and green arrows) that the 2D sonar looks like weeds.

This image looks like stacked fish because of the arches but it is a common when you have posts or trees.

On this image the bait ball and the larger fish near it are missed with 2d sonar.

I see images like these everyday on the water since I usually run down imaging with 2d sonar. If you miss a fish on sonar you may miss supper.

Understanding DownScan/Down Imaging 2/25/2105 Posted on February 25, 2015

DownScan Interpretation

This explanation is to help explain what you see with down imaging, it is pertinent to all brand’s down imaging.
Down imaging has a wider cone and will show targets off the side better than the 2D sonar (traditional sonar 200 kHz).
Notice the man-made structure plus the rocks.
Sonar tells us the distance to the target. The man-made structure pointed out with the white arrow is 8 feet from the transducer. How about the red arrow? It is pointing at rocks and long strips of something man-made. You can’t tell which side it is on since the left and right edge of the cone is combined, something 12 feet from the transducer on the left with be superimposed on something 12 feet from the transducer on the right side.

If you have side scan you can see which side of the boat a target is.
Notice the rocks are opposite the man-made structure but on the DownScan they are overlapped.

The next example shows fish by a tree on DownScan and the side scan shows the same fish to the left side. The problem is we don’t have enough screens to show all we want. I like to see the map, 2D sonar, down imaging and side scan and that is a lot of dash space to be used. The fish and the tree look like white spots and are hard to interpret.  I like one model with splitscreen sonar and DownScan and one splitscreen map and side scan with the side scan using 2/3 of the screen since wide screens are best for side scan like I used 2/3 for sides can in the image.

Electronics for Winter Crappie Patterns Posted on April 07, 2014

Winter crappie fishing in Kansas can be the fastest action most anglers will have all season

DownScan VS 2D Sonar Posted on February 02, 2014

Regular sonar (2D sonar) sometimes can’t define the details as well as DownScan sonar. Learn more about the differences between regular sonar and downscan in this article.

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