Need Fish Finder reading pointers
 

I have a hook4 combo unit and really need some help on reading/understanding what I'm looking at on the screen.

How can I tell if the bottom is sandy/soft?

Any pointing in the right direction would be appreciated.

I know this seems like a newb question but I really want learn to make the most of a tool in the toolbox.

Thanks

Don't spend my time looking at the bottom only so no great tips for you but generally, when I rarely look at the bottom, i set my depth setting to 40-60' deeper. Ex: im in 50' so i'll set my depth to 90 or 105ish. If its a rock bottom you won't pick up another layer below what your transducer is reading as the bottom or if you do it will be radically deeper. If your above a sandy bottom then your transducer will mark 1-3 additional layers 10-40' below what it's currently reading as the bottom.

In addition, sometimes the bottom is shown as a thinner/ thicker layer. i can only assume thinner means super hard bottom and thicker most likely means coarse sand. I'd imagine if the sand was fine it would be a thinner line due to being able to pack together better and marking 1-3 layers beneath the bottom would be mud. Could be wrong on this though.

there are some recent threads that deal with this in a good way...if you are smart with the search function you will find some gold

Thanks for the responses. Like everything else it will be a bit of homework then spend time on the water working it out.

Thank you!!!

Here is an older shot of a nice sandy bottom (really constant gradient) with some YT cruising through about to crush my three-way setup and "ruin" a day of halibut fishing ;)

The hard/soft return appearance is going to be dictated a lot by how you set the sensitivity and colorline on your personal sonar. Once you get used to reading your sonar and get it dialed in to where you can see clear marks in the column without a lot of interference, start bumping the bottom with a 10-12 ounce dropper loop. You'll be able to tell if it's hard or soft, especially in shallower water, and then you can start correlating in your head with what's marking on the sonar.

Look up some posts by @chris138. He's a guru with these things and posted a really great explanation somewhere on here a while back.

http://www.bigwatersedge.com/bwevb/s...ad.php?t=30462

Unfortunately, the screenshots are gone.

It's all depending on your settings, but for all intents and purpose, the density of the earth is represented by the color gradient. The slower the color turns from light to dark, the softer (less dense) the bottom. The quicker the color turns light to dark, the harder (more dense) the bottom.

10/10 recommend listening to anything Chris has to say. Also, anything GregAndrew has to say is worth a careful read.

Another thing to remember is that viewing the bottom on your FF is relative to your position on the surface and your speed.

In other words, on a calm day your image of the bottom will be relatively flat, or more even in reading depths, hardness, softness, structure, kelp, etc.

I went out last Saturday and it was rough. I was up by Black's Beach between 20'-60' to see if the previous night's grunion run was affecting the bite. The bottom is as flat as a pancake there, open sand.

According to my FF, the bottom was wild sharp zig-zags up and down, which meant my kayak was all over the place like a yo-yo. It does NOT mean I'm looking at a jagged bottom.

Learning to read nuances of my FF has been a confusing and slow learning curve for me. For the most part, I think it's safe to say I still don't know WTF I'm looking at. Nevertheless, I study it all the time when I'm on the water. Trying to interpret what I'm looking at still falls in the category of "it depends," "maybe," and "I don't know."

Yes, look up Chris138. He was active and generous in a thread about this and his comments helped me a lot. Kevin Nakada (Sea Samurai) gave a talk at Fastlane Hobie Center in Mission Bay and I thought his depth of knowledge was very good. You might check with them for future events. Keep your eye peeled for seminars by local guides on this subject at the fish & boat shows. Check with Lowrance to see if they have anything coming up.

Good luck! Please report back and let us know what you learn.