Quote Originally Posted by buffresources View Post
Took my new Elite 5 DSI out for a trail run at the local lake today...took me a while to get initiated as the unit lacks many of the menus listed in the owners "attempt at a manual".

I could see the structure, trees with branches, clutter at the top of water which I assume is algae mats, but between the bottom shadow and the surface I could not descern any fish, just mostly clear area whether the contrast was med or high.

Trolled around for a couple of hours playing with the unit...set noise off, 800hz as I was in around 10-12 ft of water, and the contrast at med and high...made no differance.

I have read all the comments in the blog and gather that there are no "arches", no fish "ID" and images like that for fish.

So what should I look for?

Among the tree branches on the bottom the detail on the window is too small to see anything like the photos show i.e. really big "fish signatures"

So any thoughts on what I am doing wrong?

Any help would be appreciated.
I sounds like your not doing anything wrong. You will just have to spend some more time cruising around looking at things on the bottom of the lake. Make sure you are in advanced mode so that you can practice with all the features and options. If you see a fallen tree at the shore line, cruise over to it and go right over the part of the tree that's in the water. Between two and four mph I think will give you a good representation on your screen.. Go back over the tree again and again with different settings and after awhile you'll be able to wrap your brain around what your seeing on the screen. You will also notice after awhile the viewing screen is plenty big enough. Ok, now what do fish look like? If the fish is not moving very fast it should appear as a small dot, dash or smear. Fast(er) moving fish will be a longer smear or a sqwiggly line. Schools of fish are of course the easiest to identify followed by groups of fish followed by individual fish. For example, picture in your minds eye a brush pile in 20' of water with four or five bass hovering within 2 to 5 feet of the pile. The image you will see on your sonar should be a fairly defined (not perfect) representation of a brush pile with four or five obvious dots hovering around the representation. Now, mark the location, turn around and go back over it. You will an inverse image of the brush pile with four or five dots, but possibly the dots will have moved from thier first location. That's it in a nut shell. Practice, practice, practice and you will not only learn to trust your unit you will learn to rely on it. Don't try to learn it all in one day. Try to keep it fun. It's what we're out there for. Right?