Post your interesting sonar images

[Larry3215]

Its raining. Its windy. I havent been fishing for waaaaaaay tooooo long!!! So, I was bored and looking at some sonar recordings and found something interesting that I hadnt noticed when I was on the water. Thats one reason I save and go back over sonar recordings. I often find interesting things that I missed when I was on the boat.

Anyway, Ive seen other threads on other boards where people share interesting sonar pics that have, so I thought I would see if it was something folks on this board would be interested in.

It would help if people listed what equipment they are using but thats not necessary if you dont want to. You can also say where you got the shot if you want.

I'll start with a few of mine.

This first one is from Spencer Lake. Ive fished that lake several times in the same area and never noticed this on the screen. Missed it this time too until I got home and looked at the recordings. Garmin 7610xsv/GT51M-TM 'ducer

[Larry3215]

These are some favorites from my old Hummibird 598ci DH si. These are from Banks Lake along the bouy line. I think the schools of fish are Lake Whitefish but they could have been walleye. They were not interested in anything we threw at them.

These are debris from the old Narrows Bridge.

[zen leecher aka Bill W]

The first one looks like an old box.

[Larry3215]

Big box - its like 10 feet tall.

[DavidA]

Larry: Huge box, in relatively shallow water! Mind sharing where in Spencer? You'd expect all sorts of gear would be tangled up on that thing. I wouldn't mind searching for it next time I fish there.

[zen leecher aka Bill W]

Is this lake manmade? This could be a flooded out old cabin if it's that tall.

[Larry3215]

Its where all those trees are laying down in the water just around the corner from the ramp.

[DavidA]

Thanks. I know the area you are talking about. I often cast in that way for bass and have tried jigging for perch a little further along. My sounder is just a basic one so I'd never see anything like what you got but I'm sure I can find it now I'll be looking. Very strange! And that comment about it appearing to be a house, is what I thought, though I don't think the lake is manmade.

[Larry3215]

Here is a sideview of the same target and the aprox location. Im thinking that might be tree branches that just happen to look like a box or it could be part of that old cabin that tumbled into the water maybe.

[DavidA]

It's a little further around the corner than I had originally thought, so the map really helps. What a bizarre structure. Hard to imagine simple branches but then again, it's hard to imagine anything else that looks like that too! Great info. Thanks again.

[The Quadfather]

Great thread Larry. Thanks for posting this up. I have to put an SD card in my unit, and see what I can add here.

[Larry3215]

I still dont know what that was at spencer lake, but when we went back yesterday, it was laying down flat on the bottom. Im thinking it was some sort of tree branches maybe? I didnt get a new screen shot yet. Will post when I get one.

[Larry3215]

I got a couple of interesting screen captures out at Spencer yesterday. The first one is traditional sonar showing a bunch of fish in the water. These are mostly small trout - fingerlings up to maybe 6"-10" based on what we were catching. The larger returns are probably in the 15"-16" range - thats the largest one we caught.

The second odd looking image is from the Garmin Panoptix forward looking LiveVu sonar we just got this year. That is a shot looking to the right front of the boat. The bright red glob is a trout one of my brothers is reeling in at the bow with two other trout further out in front of the boat and a little off to the right side. I was able to see fish as much as 80 feet out away from the boat in all directions. This Panoptix is totally changing how we fish. Its awesome!

[Larry3215]

I made a short video of our trip to Spencer lake last week, I had a lot of trouble trying to record the video on my phone and ended up missing most of the really good stuff.

If you're not familiar with Garmins Panoptix, this is what you are seeing.

This is a real time screen capture of fish I was able to see at various distances in all directions around the boat. As you can see, I was able to spot fish as far away as 65+ feet. I actually saw fish out to over 80 feet but didnt manage to record those times. Im pretty sure most of these fish are stocked trout in the 6" to 10" range with a few hold overs up to 15" - thats the largest we caught that day. We also caught a few in the 4" range.

In the top right corner is a small boat icon with a yellow cone projecting out of it. That cone represents the direction I am pointing the transducer at that particular moment. The "beam" is about 40 degrees wide with the PS21 transducer. Distance from the boat is along the top of the screen and water depth is along the left side. The transducer sits about 3 feet under the water when fully deployed.

The transducer location is shown in the top left of the screen. So, from the top left, you are looking out and down to the right on the screen. When Im pointing the transducer forward (check the yellow cone), you can see my trolling motor and the hull of the boat as a bright red series of blobs across the top left. The trolling motor shows up as about about 10ft from the transducer. When I point it aft or under the boat, you can also see the hull of the boat and my main motor hanging down in some shots.

Every thing else that is a well defined, moving blob is a fish. Smaller fish are whitish blobs and larger ones are yellow to red for the strongest returns. The red along the bottom of the screen is the bottom When Im pointing the transducer towards deeper water, it sloped down and away from the boat. When I point it at the shore, it slopes up and away.

In some shots you can also see the snap swivel and or a small split shot in front of a fish being reeled in as well as followers. I didnt get it in the video, but there were also times I could see 20# braided fishing line going to the lure.

Hope you find this interesting

https://vimeo.com/164007499" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Larry3215]

A couple of notes I forgot to add.

Starting at about 25 seconds, I spotted a fish about 55 feet out to the right front of the boat and tracked it as we trolled past it until I finally lost it astern. You can watch the yellow cone as I track the fish.

At about the 2:10 mark, my bro caught a 10" trout and we let it go back down while still hooked. You can see the small split shot ahead of the fish as it goes down as well as some followers and my other bro jigging for the followers - with no luck. I lost it for a while as we pulled the boat away from it at around the 3:20 mark to see how far away it would show up. I spotted it again when it surfaced about 50 feet out.

[Larry3215]

We went ling cod fishing Tuesday under the Narrows Bridge on the Tacoma side as well as trying out on Toliva shoal. Didnt get any lings, but I did catch c few interesting sonar images. You can really see why people loose so much gear fishing under the Bridge!

This is what one section of the bottom looks like using traditional sonar.

This is the same thing on downvu. All that fuzz hanging off the sides of that piece of bridge debris sticking up must be fishing tackle - much of it is mine!!

This is the same area on sidevu

[Larry3215]

A couple more sidevu shots in the same general area.

[Larry3215]

Too bad salmon is closed because we saw some huge bait balls!

Here is what one looked like on traditional sonar. Nice but not all that impressive.

Here is another one looked at with Panoptix. You can see its a good 50 feet thick and over 100 feet long! Those redish blobs are larger fish/salmon mixed in - probably having dinner.

This is the same bait ball when they surfaced right where we were. The herring were jumping all around the boat and the bait ball extended more than 100 feet away.

[Larry3215]

I was going to post some more shots but I just noticed Im the only one posting!

[cobrar543]

keep going LOL