Kayak Sonar Discussion

[summers in kuwait]

Chris,

First off, thanks. This type of input and support has made this forum a wealth of knowledge for many.

I can't speak for others, but I have no problem saying that using a fish finder has been one of the more challenging aspects in my fishing, as I spent my entire life fishing without one, until the last couple years.

I know many may like to know more info about this question:

"So I've gotten a ff and hooked it up, now how do I optimize the settings for fishing Inshore Saltwater?"

Cheers,

Todd

[chris138]

Originally Posted by summers in kuwait

Chris,

First off, thanks. This type of input and support has made this forum a wealth of knowledge for many.

I can't speak for others, but I have no problem saying that using a fish finder has been one of the more challenging aspects in my fishing, as I spent my entire life fishing without one, until the last couple years.

I know many may like to know more info about this question:

"So I've gotten a ff and hooked it up, now how do I optimize the settings for fishing Inshore Saltwater?"

Cheers,

Todd

60' or less: you can play around with all different frequencies and see all kinds of cool structure and fish. low frequencies, you will see tons of huge boomerangs, and get a lot of non-sense returns of grass and smelt and ribbon kelp and all kinds of noise and weird stuff. use 200 kHz plus for shallow waters, and use downscan if you have it.

~60' deep or more: you want to be using your lowest frequency mainly. if you have a big enough screen, you can run dual frequency on one screen. But still the lower kHz the better. If you are just getting started, use only your low frequency. lower kHz has better penetration of depth, and seeing beneath hard marks like macks or crabs. it also typically will have a wider beam, which means you can see out to the side around you more. higher frequencies see better resolution of smaller or softer objects. so if you want to look at individual greenbacks, higher kHz is better. Low frequencies will give you the boomerangs and worms of big fish. turn up your sensitivity or gain until the bottom looks like a very "hot" or "hard" color (ie, the bottom looks like my pics above, in whatever color spectum you have)

Oh yea, did I mention that having color is pretty important?

EDIT: I should also add that you want to use the highest ping speed possible for fishing the deeper waters of LJ and inshore socal.

If you get that far, then take some screen shots and post them here. I will give you some feedback from there.