Sounder Setting on the Lowrance Gen 2

So a great follow up question came in after the structure scan blog went out. How about some general information on the Sounder settings?
Good Idea. I think the best way to show this is by example.  I will use two of my screen shots to discuss this topic.

In the above photo, taken from Mt. Hope Bay, you can see on the screen some of my settings. I am at 200 KHz, common for fishing. I also keep my sensitivity at -2% to -3%. To me, this gives the best clarity on screen to "weed" out background noise and pull fish images clearer. Since the fish were in depths of 70 ft (you can actually see my sinker bouncing at 75 ft prior to the strike on live Pogi... the point where all of the fish converge), I needed to get a gauge on their exact location as we were in a channel. So I combined my sonar with my structure scan/downscan to identify they were moving to my starboard (towards the edge of the channel on an incoming tide).  If I showed you my other images of my chart (which I won't for secrecy purposes), this will all confirm this point.

Here, we identified the Pogi/Bunker ball in the middle of the channel. On my structure/side scan you can see clearly the ball, where it is on my boat and the depth of it. This goes along with my last blog as to why you absolutely need structure scan if you want to find fish.  This ball is over 25 feet in depth, yet on my sonar, it barely shows up. Why? Well, looking at my side scan, you can see that the ball is off to my port side. The image you see on my sonar is what is captured "underneath my boat". The bait however is NOT underneath my boat so all I am seeing is the last edge of the ball! Remember, the side scan uses a different transducer so the cone angle is different on each one.

One of the biggest areas to play around with is your sensitivity and Palettes. Find the best one for your environment. When I bass fish, I like the sepia color with -2%. Tuna fishing, I switch to the blue palette and go to -1% or 0 as I want to pick up as much as possible.  

I hope this shed a little more light on your sounder settings and can get you into fish with your new Lowrance Gen2 unit.  Remember to hit up the boat shows and speak to a pro staffer in person. Nothing beats hands on training!

Thanks for the great feedback on the blog. I hope I am helping at least one of you!

Capt. Brian