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Woodlander
Senior Member
Username: Woodlander
Post Number: 2176
Registered: 02-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 11:29 am: | 
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Part V
Adjusting a Depth Finder
When I first started getting serious about learning to read a depth finder I had a Lowrance X65 with 160x160 pixels. At the time it was one of the best on the market and a far cry from my previous unit with all the little gray “boxes”. I really couldn‘t make heads or tails of what I was seeing on my X65 except the bottom. I read the owner’s manual and every article and book I could get my hands on to see if I couldn’t learn to adjust my unit so I could see what other people “said” they saw.
The articles and posts said to get a good picture you had to take your unit out of automatic and set the sensitivity, grayline, chart speed, ping speed, etc., etc., - depending on the depth of the water and what not. I tried my best but the variables were just to overwhelming and so were my questions such as - if you change one setting does it effect the need to change another and how much?
I really wanted to learn so I went to Lake Lanier and out on the water with a guide who had a unit similar to mine. What I really learned was “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear!” What I had been seeing was pretty much what he was. I did learn “that a fish made a arch on the screen because his head and tail are smaller with less profile than his back which is also arched”. lol All that told me was I had to take with a grain of salt what I read or heard and figure it out for myself. I’m sure both of us have come a long way since then! lol
Anyway, I came home and set my unit just like his and quit fooling with it so much. Each time out I would spend a little time trying to learn what I was seeing. I’d catch a fish or two every now and then and get hung up a lot! It wasn’t until I got my Garmin 240 that things started to come together. It’s amazing what a little more separation can do. I actually started to see what I knew were fish. I’ll post some of my early pictures in the part on reading a depth finder.
Now with the high pixel count units there’s no problem in seeing individual fish even in “automatic”. I do think perhaps you can gain something by manually setting certain settings. I’m going to take you through what I do from factory settings.
Keep in mind that each companies’ depth finders are different. Also, the different models might be different within each company. What’s a good adjustment with one unit might not be with another. By showing what I do, I hope to give you confidence to play with your own settings. Your might find that automatic works best for your unit. After a short time you’ll find a setting that is pretty much the best for you and your unit and you’ll quit worrying about settings and get on to learning about what you’re seeing.
Since variables out on the water such as depth and speed can effect what you are seeing, I decide to sink the balloons again so I could take pictures from the same spot and of the same objects. I sank the three balloons in an area where I thought they’d be few fish. I had no sooner turned around until these guys showed up. This is a picture of what I see with the adjustments I use.
I’m going to go through this screen by screen because it might be confusing to those who are just buying their first depth finder. This first picture is out of sequence because I forgot to take it originally. It shows the main menu. You open it by pushing the menu button twice. Every time I turn on my unit I have to turn on the “Enable Screenshots” to take pictures with the SD card. (You can see the “Popup Help” that comes on.) After that I scrolled down to the “System Setup” and push “enter“ on the unit.
That makes this menu come up and I scroll down and turn off the popup help and then scroll up to Reset” and push enter. I think all depth finders have a reset button. It puts you right back to factory - (default) - settings. It’s a neat feature that I’ve used a hundred times over the years. It lets you fool around with the settings knowing you can at least get back to the start.
I think my age group is techno phobic. We grew up in the age of black and white console televisions with possibly even an antenna on the top of the television. Each one of these sets had a panel that opened and inside was an array knobs. All those knobs plus the position of the antenna did something to the picture. We can all probably hear our dads say, “Don’t touch the tv or you’ll just mess up the picture!” lol Now we have to turn to our kids to help us with our electronics. lol
“Reset” gave me this picture. I then had to scroll over to the sonar tab and push enter.
That brings up this picture. It’s a very good picture trolling over the balloons and even showing the buoy cord as the boat bounces into the buoy. The problem is that automatic on my unit often times uses only about half the screen. The rest is wasted showing the bottom.
With my unit I have to literally get into 12 feet of water before it will shift from 30 feet to 20 feet. I could push “zoom” but then I would loose the top 8 feet which is disconcerting after all these year plus you never know what you might miss.
The best thing here would be set the depth to just a little deeper than the water you expect to be in and leave everything else alone. Here’s how you do that. Go into the “sonar menu” by pushing the menu button one time. This menu pops up with “auto depth range” on. Scroll down to it and push “enter” to turn it off.
Scroll up to “depth range” and hit “enter“.
Scroll to 30 since the balloons are in just under 30 feet.
Hit “enter” and then “exit” and this is the picture I got when I trolled over to the balloons. Obviously the rest of the automatic did not like having the depth set. This is the sort of thing that would’ve panicked me at one time and I would’ve gone back to default. You can see that the sensitivity is way too high. I’m even picking up trolling motor interference - the dark vertical lines.
This was my automatic sensitivity reading when I went to the sonar menu and pushed enter while it was on “sensitivity”.
The unit started to make adjustments as I got to shallower water at the right side of this picture.
It continued to adjust as I got shallower. In just 9 feet of depth difference it went from way too much sensitivity to too little.
The best thing to do then is to set the sensitivity manually to a constant so it doesn’t jump around. Here’s how. Hit the menu button one time and open the “sonar menu”. Scroll to “auto sensitivity” and turn it off by pushing “enter”.
Scroll up to “sensitivity” and push enter.
This brings up the sensitivity graph.
I like 85% or 90% depending on the amount of bubbles in the water. I’ll explain later.
Here’s what 90% looks like but there’s too much cluttered.
This is a pretty good picture. I really like how the balloons are showing but there’s still a little too much clutter.
A lot of this can be eliminated by filtering the surface clutter. To get there go to the main menu by pushing the menu button twice and bring up this. Scroll down to the “Sonar Feature”
Pushing “enter” will bring up the Sonar Features menu. You’ll notice that they still offer “Fish ID” because other companies do as a selling point even though it’s a big mistake to use it.
Notice how much surface clutter - top 10 feet- is present in that last picture with 85% sensitivity. Now see where the “Surface Clutter” says “off”. This is where you adjust the surface clutter filter. The manuals might say that the filter adjust the clutter near the surface but they actually affect the whole picture to some degree.
Highlight “Surface Clutter” and push enter. That will bring up this.
Scroll down to “Low”.
Push “enter” and then “exit” and “exit” and you get this picture.
If clearing a little surface clutter can be good, why not more? Without going through the process this is what the picture will look like with the surface clutter filter on medium. It’s obviously more than you’d want.
I turn the “Noise Rejection” to off because I’ve never had a problem with noise and I turn off the “Zoom Bar” too in order to expand the screen. I do leave the “Amplitude Scope” on and I’ll explain in the next section.
This is what I come out with. That’s a fish on the left overlapping the echo from the top balloon. It’s a very good view of the balloons and just enough clutter to know I’ll pick up bait fish or predators if they are in the area.
You’ll notice that I’ve adjusted very few things. I like everything else in factory/default settings. I’ve got such a good picture that I’ve never bothered to try some of the other adjustments.
One other thing I like to do is set my depth on 25 feet in the summer and early fall because most of the fish are in about 15 to 25 feet of water. I found that I was constantly going back and forth between 20 and 30 feet which is what they give you on the “Depth Range” menu. It’s easy to set a specific depth by going down to “Upper and Lower Limits” on the sonar menu and push enter.
I leave the “upper limit” on “0” and scroll down to the “lower limit”. Using the pad to scroll across you can set the lower limit to whatever you want like you would with a VCR.
Here I’m pulling in the balloons.
This is a picture that occurs often. I just don’t post them! lol
I can’t tell you how much you’ll learn by putting out some balloons yourself. It takes about 15 minutes at home to tie a buoy cord to an anchor and tying the knots. It takes 5 minutes on the water to blow up the balloons and tie them on and throw the rig overboard. You can troll back and forth over the balloons and make adjustments to see what affect they have.
Nobody would think about learning to play golf without going to the driving range. The nice thing with the balloons is you can do it one time for an hour and may never need to do it again. I would suggest going out by yourself so you can work through everything without someone looking over your shoulder. The next time out you can show your fishing buddy how much you’ve learned!
The next part will be on reading a depth finder. I'll include a lot of labeled pictures and I hope to go back and find some good black and white pictures also. |
Rwill99
Senior Member
Username: Rwill99
Post Number: 201
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 01:12 pm: |
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Great stuff!!! |
Catch1
Senior Member
Username: Catch1
Post Number: 1117
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 02:40 pm: |
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Wow, you are putting in some hours.....thanks for the material.... |
Bucketmouth
Member
Username: Bucketmouth
Post Number: 30
Registered: 06-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 04:57 pm: |
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This is such a great help. All of this stuff is really good. Especially for those of use who have never had anyone to teach us.
Thanks and God bless! |
Jmac
Senior Member
Username: Jmac
Post Number: 240
Registered: 01-2008
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - 09:23 am: |
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Thanks for all the work you've put into this.
There is going to be new structure to fish on Wedowee now because I plan on doing the balloon exercise, and I'm sure that if I'm going to do it, other will also.
Thanks again for teaching us!
John |
Bassaholic
Senior Member
Username: Bassaholic
Post Number: 363
Registered: 12-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - 08:32 pm: |
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You guys pay close attention because the course you would pay to learn this, DOES NOT go in depth anywhere near what Woodlander is teaching here.
I am an advanced sonar user ( just thought I was until I read these posts ) and I am learning so much from this.
Thank you Woodlander for your expertise, willingness to share your knowledge, and the tremendous amount of time and effort you are putting into this. YOU DA MAN!!!! |
Woodlander
Senior Member
Username: Woodlander
Post Number: 2178
Registered: 02-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - 09:57 pm: |
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Thank you all very much. I've really enjoyed it and have learned some things too by having to put thoughts into words. I posted a link to BFHP for some of them to read and I know some of those guys are sharper than me so I've tried to think things through.
I've got some cool stuff for the next part. I just need to get out on the lake one more time to get the very best pictures I can.
I'm also going to work through a couple of thousand pictures over the last eight years. Don't worry Mike, I won't post them all! lol I'll post quite a few though and label them. After a while it will become obvious what you're seeing.
No problem... if we need to increase the server space for the pictures, let us have 'em! Thanks for the tremendous time and effort you are putting into this project. Mike B. |
Afishaday
Senior Member
Username: Afishaday
Post Number: 381
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, August 15, 2009 - 09:28 pm: |
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I just keep learning more and more from you, Woodlander, and it continues to pay dividends (and cost $$$). I installed 2 new HDS units recently and found much to like about them... but just did not feel I was getting the most out of the HDS10... even after making the adjustments you recommend. I talked to the folks I bought it from (3 Rivers marine... fabulous folks!!!) and we agreed to try a new transducer. Well after my hands and arms quit bleeding from the installation (tough threading a noodle through that channel in a ranger!) I went out for 90 minutes this afternoon... it was like a miracle... there was all the structure I knew was there... and the fish were all over it... 9 fish (up to 4#s) in that one spot and I had to get off the water to meet house guests... otherwise I would still be there ! Point of all this is... you are providing confidence building for me/us and that is a great gift. BTW, as someone here or over at BFHP said... sure hope you will include Side-Scan in your info along the way... I am 3rd on the Lowrance list to get it in November and I am very anxious... and a little nervous (might not have time to fish with all the fun going on sitting there looking at the screen!). THANKS!! |
Woodlander
Senior Member
Username: Woodlander
Post Number: 2182
Registered: 02-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 07:32 pm: |
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Thanks Afish,
I wonder how many people might have a bad transducer and don't know it.
If side scan is like side imaging, and I'm sure it is, you want need any help. Just turn it on and see things that are mind blowing!
I hope to have the next part in Thursday. I got some neat pictures today for as long as I could stand it. I can handle the heat but this humidity is terrible. |
Oc
Junior Member
Username: Oc
Post Number: 14
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 - 07:11 am: |
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I'm doing this next time I go out. Thinking of a little modification though and using a gallon milk jug, a half gallon milk jug and a 20 oz coke bottle. Hopeing to see differences in the size as I make the adjustments you showed. I'll try and grab a pic and post. Was wanting friday but 50% chance of rain. May have to wait till next week. |
Catch1
Senior Member
Username: Catch1
Post Number: 1123
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 - 01:35 pm: |
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Oc, You will definitely need a heavy weight to get those to sink (LOL) and don't be scared of a little rain.....Don't forget to post some pics if you do..... |
Oc
Junior Member
Username: Oc
Post Number: 15
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 - 02:10 pm: |
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Thinking cinder block for anchor. If she floats we'll just blow some ballast, ughhhh I mean unscrew the cap and let some water in. My unit is a Garmin 430SX so its a small screen but it should work. Rain ain't too bad, everything is waterproof but me. |
Woodlander
Senior Member
Username: Woodlander
Post Number: 2183
Registered: 02-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 - 08:35 pm: |
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That's a great idea OC. You could try it one way and then reverse the order to see if depth made much of a difference.
Catch1 is right. The first time I tried this experiment several years ago I used a milk jug. It's amazing how much one of those things can float! lol
I didn't know if putting water in the jugs might affect how they might return sounds? Say if you filled up the gallon jug half full of water might make it return sounds more like a 1/2 gallon. One thing you could try is get a bag of mixed size balloons. Just a thought. I'm curious to see how you do. |
Oc
Junior Member
Username: Oc
Post Number: 16
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Monday, August 24, 2009 - 09:36 pm: |
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I feel like a dang cinder block. Got everything set up for this morning, jugs on a cord secured with knots and zip ties even asked my neighbor if I could have one of his cinder blocks. Half way to Lay block head remember he didn't get the block.
So I figured I would just grab a piece of rip rap and use that. Could never find a place to grab one that wouldn't scratch up the boat but hey, they were hitting the crazy shad around rip rap this morning. I got three good bites with nice fish just couldn't keep em stuck. Should have changed from the frog pattern to a white or blue clear. Managed about a 2lb head out of the weeds with a brown jig.
I did play around with settings alot though. I had to go to a gain of +4 on my Garmin 240 up front to see a jig going to the bottom. On the console best view was about an 83 setting.
Did notice if you leave the console on that setting and head to shallow water it hangs up at about 3 feet. That may have cost me a bunch of soundings for my maps but we shall see. Got to cruch some numbers. I'll post a map or two if anyone wants to see them. |
Oc
Junior Member
Username: Oc
Post Number: 17
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 28, 2009 - 10:12 am: |
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Finnaly got some time to look at the soundings from Monday. Caught my jig fish on the deeper bank over on the left. Next time if the conditions are the same, mid-day bright sun I'm gonna fish this different. I'll crank that outside river ledge in front of the pockets drifting downriver (left to right) then move to the jig bite on the deeper bank. There is about 1900 soundings on this one.
 |
Shawno1980
Senior Member
Username: Shawno1980
Post Number: 155
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Monday, November 16, 2009 - 11:49 am: |
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great stuff thanks for taking the time to help! |
