fish finder question

[Kareem Korn]

The few times I've been out on the lake I've been picking up the bubbles as fish. I mostly use my ff as a constant guide for the bottom. But, the mass show of fish on the screen has stopped me in my tracks fishing like a mad man only to find out it just little bubbles popping. Seems like there are alot of areas that have constant bubbles popping. Anyone else have this, and if so how do you deal with it. I tried fine tunning the sensitivity to the point of blocking out even the fish. I've just been sight fishing. But, now that the fish are deeper I will have to rely on my ff.

[lurk 182]

i see bubbles a lot when fishing. sometimes its fish, sometimes the actual bottom is gassing. what makes you think your graph is making the bubbles look like fish marks? its not unusual to see bubbles in the same place you're marking fish. i've been able to read algae clumps that look like blobs but those bubbles are moving from the bottom to the surface pretty quickly, they should not look like fish marks at all.

[Kareem Korn]

I just assumed that it picks up the bladders of the fish and is mistaking the air bubbles as the fish bladders.

[lurk 182]

i don't think the graph is reading swim bladders. the way sonar works is that the graph measures the amount of time it takes for the ping to go down and then bounce back to the transducer (receiver). a fish can be distinguished from the bottom because the portion of the echo that bounces back off the fish gets back to the transducer more quickly (cause its a shorter distance) than the echo bouncing off the bottom. bass should look like short rainbow like/boomerang shapes with the ends of the boomerang pointing downward. i don't use a fish id feature but on some graphs they will show up like a little fish shape. trout are less of a rainbow shape, look longer and much skinnier in the vertical aspect. sometimes hard to tell striper from cats but generally the bigger the fish, the bigger the rainbow/boomerang will be. if it looks big and you're in deep water, its a bigger fish. when you're shallow almost all of the marks are going to be larger but you have to figure in the depth.

[FishingFanatic]

turn off fish tracker if you have it on. This interprets almost anything as fish. Look for the arches.

[DKCbassman]

Yeah, the Fish ID is fun for the kids, but turn it off if its on. Try adjusting the Contrast and the Sensitivity, Keel off-set, etc. If it's just the DVL rental Graphs, it's really not reliable.

[Nessie Hunter]

If your at DVL, do not discount the number of fish in that lake..

I remember some underwater videos a few yrs ago From "DVL_LOCAL" that had literally dozens of nice bass and other fish to, just cruisin around...

Lots of bait also...

Bait balls (tight running bait swarms) look like a cloud and should have arches under and around them as the big fish feed on them..

Arches around high spots or humps and structure are 'probably' fish at DVL...

I dont think you will get readings from bubbles????



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[one_leg]

Air bubbles passing under your transducer will surely affect the readings.

Place your transducer in a location that prevents air bubbles from being created in the path of the transducer.

[lurk 182]

Air bubbles passing under your transducer will surely affect the readings.

Place your transducer in a location that prevents air bubbles from being created in the path of the transducer.

very true, but he would be seeing those type of issues only when he's running the boat on the big motor as that type of "bubbles" are caused by turbulence and there being a little bit of air getting under the transducer, preventing the signal from being sent and received back correctly. if he's seeing this when the boat is not moving, its not bad transducer placement, which is certainly crucial if he wants to be able to troll at all or read the graph when he's moving at any significant rate of speed.

[one_leg]

I think the bubbles are fish farts. Catfish eating Trolly's discarded bait are flatulating.

Those bubbles would look like a stream of little marks trailing up to the surface, wouldn't they?




Kareem, are you on your yak when you are seeing these suspicious marks?