question for a friend. he wants to know if there are any pictures on a lowrance site

[olduckhunter]

or here that will show the difference between fish. mainly show what a crappie looks like on his lowrance. evidently he has some good ones. he said he can see his jig on the screen. that's the best i can describe what he's after. i had him get on here but he's worse than i am on puters and he doesn't have the patience with a puter either.

[Barnacle Bill]

Excluding down imaging and side imaging (I have no experience with these) the answer is NO WAY! If he has the fish symbols turned on anything that returns a signal is going to show up as a fish. Old beer can, suspended log, an old boot, etc. The depth finder can't tell the difference between these and a fish let alone what type fish. That is why most fisherman turn that off and just look for arches. They are not 100% but a lot better than the fish symbols. Now I have seen pictures of side and down imaging shots that show fish in a brush pile and you can pretty well figure they are crappie. But they could be bream or any other fish holding tight to cover.

[gabowman]

Bait and crappie (I was catching 'em)...


And yes, with the sensitivity set right you can see your jig under the transducer. Just jig it up and down and you'll see a steady line (when sitting still) moving up and down)

[gabowman]

Here's one a little different. The steady line across the screen is a 2 oz. weight. The thin squiggley line is a herring for bait. And the thick arching lines are stripers.

[olduckhunter]

ga, which fishmark you got there? what number?

[gabowman]

ga, which fishmark you got there? what number?

It's a 480. My son had a 320 and it looked the same way. About the only difference I found between them two is there's a better backscreen light for the 480.

[Lonestar Proud]

I agree with gabowman. I have an HDS-7 on the console and a 5 up front on the TM, if the jig is in the cone you will see it as a straight line, or moving up and down if you move it a few inches. I don't have a screen shot of it though, probably should take one some time.

[Crappie Chatt]

Here is a screen shot of crappies in a pile with some hybirds near. <*)}}}><

[gabowman]

Here's 1 more picture. It has bait and fish from surface down to about 10' or so and more bait and possibly a fish or two along the bottom. I dont know of any graphs that will tell ya what kind of fish youre seeing but it's a safe bet that when youre seeing alot of arches and catching alot of crappie then those arches youre seeing are crappie. When striper fishing it's not unusual to see a striper/hybrid come up 50' or more to "sniff" or take a bait and return to 100' or more of water. Usually when youre seeing stripers on the graph the lines are very eratic and will zigzag across the screen. Nothing replaces experience with your units.

[caddesigner]

I set through one of Lance Valentines sonar seminars, (very interesting and educational) a couple of weeks ago. He is a firm believer in a good color unit with high resolution and learn to use it and gain confidence in it. He says he feels he can identify the type of fish on his color sonar about 70 % of the time. He says the new side imaging and down imaging are great especially for finding structure, but if you can only have one on your boat you would be better off buying a high resolution color finder (he said no less than 480 pixels vertical) and learn how to use it and gain confidence in it. Walleye pro Johnnie Candle was also there and said he would 100% agree with that. By the way Lance uses Lowrance and Johnnie uses Humminbird.