Humminbird SI produces crappie

[CRAPPIEHUNTER68]

Hey guys got out this weekend and got the chance to get 2 snapshots of crappie. One on the 1197 before I caught them and one after I caught them. More and more I am figuring out which fish are likely crappie and which are not. I must say it is pretty awesome to ride the lake and rule out areas where I do not see fish and only fish where I see fish. Enjoy the pics.

[Big Ridge Brewer]

Well done!

[Kman]

I dont mean this arguementively (SP?) because i have an SI and am learning how to use it. I truely am asking because I wanna know.

How can you tell that from the dots you have circled to the dozens of other dots I can see in the pics?

Thanks!!!!

[CRAPPIEHUNTER68]

Hey Kman. I only circled a few of the fish in the area I thought were crappie and then verified by catching them.
Here is my explanation of how I do it. I look for groupings of fish like you see in the yellow box. There are what I think to be 35 to 40 fish in that box. There are others scattered around but the concentration was in the box.
Now that said if there are fish all over the screen I usually can not catch them.
What I look for is fish associating to some type of structure in groups of say 10 to 50. That is for crappie.
Another thing you will learn pretty quickly:

(1) Longer, bright white fish, in large schools, that show up in MS are gar and they will wear you out trolling.

[Kman]

Cool!
Hey, any more pics of this type of grouping you can get, please show me. That sure makes it easier to identify and learn.

Thanks brother!

[CRAPPIEHUNTER68]

Here is another one. These turned out to be stripe bass 1 to 1 1/2 pounds each. You can see them clearly by the cursor. I caught 3 or 4 of them in just a few minutes then moved on.

[Herewego]

nice catch and snapshots

[wilbur]

How do you tell how deep those fish are. I know you are only in 8 to 9.5 ft. of water but is there a way to figure how deep they are? IM just learning any help appreciated.
thanks WILBUR

[TapOut64]

How do you tell how deep those fish are. I know you are only in 8 to 9.5 ft. of water but is there a way to figure how deep they are? IM just learning any help appreciated.
thanks WILBUR

The shadow of the fish can give you some idea as to how deep they are. If they are on the bottom there will be no shadow. The shallower they are the further their shadow will be from them. The problem with crappie though is that they are so small that sometimes it's tough to see their shadows.

Here's a large school of gar where you can make out some shadows.

[reggis]

From you photo how can you tell these are gar and not crappie?