[Mr. NiceGuy]

I upgraded my Outback with a Lowrance Elite-5 Chirp with downscan & chartplotting.

I've used it once for about 3 hours and I'm trying to figure out how to actually apply what I'm looking at to improve my fishing.

I've read the manual and I've looked for youtube tutorials about how to interpret what we see on the screen. It's all pretty vague to me. I've also searched for google images to look for interpretations of the data we are looking at. Hard information is sparse and scattered.

---

1. What do you personally find to be the most useful practical reasons for having a fish finder?

2. What are the most important tools on your FF that you use most?

3. What are your favorite settings or adjustments as your starting point? There are many to choose from.


Please help push a noob over the hump with suggestions for making this thing useful in a practical way, more than it is a decoration or distraction.

---

*For about 5 months I have been using sonar maps and route tracking with the Navionics Boating App on my iphone. I found that to be a good planning tool, and a good way to monitor and review my route data. It's good way to follow depth contours or look for depressions. It's good information for planning distance, time, speed, etc., for my fishing sessions. The free version is almost the same as the paid upgrade.

*I also enjoy the challenge of dead reckoning with traditional paper charts folded into a ziploc bag