crappie on hb 998 pic

Saw that hockey86 put a pic up of his graph and was asking about it. I snapped a pic the other day Attachment 146252while crappie fishing of a school of crappie. Right after I snapped this pic, I had 3 rods get hit and landed 2 of the fish. The school of fish that are just to the right of my cursor is a big school of crappie that were marked slightly off the right side of the boat. Notice how the marks aren't red all the way across, but just in the middle, this is because the fish came in the edge of my sonar cone and not directly in the thickest part of it and straight through it. They just got caught in the edge and were off to the right. I know they were off to the right since 3 out of 4 rods I had on the right side of the boat are the ones that got hit and none on the left. Also in the pic on the bottom are what looks like arches stacked up on top of each other. These aren't fish but standing timber. In between those stacked up arches there are a couple of big thick arches that are only showing about half of an arch. Those are big catfish, most likely blues. This view of crappie is what I've been fishing in lately. These fish are a little challenging to target since they are over open water and there is no rhyme or reason to where they are or where they are headed. I've started using my side imaging on my 998 on the console to spot schools off to the right or left. If they are withn about 40 ft. I will turn and try to intercept them. If they are further than that, I've found that more than likily they will have moved by the time I get there and I won't pass over them. longlining with planer boards would be a great tactic to widen your spread in this situation, but I have yet to try it. I've been tightlining through these fish at about .5 through .8 mph. Sometimes I will run about 1 mph until I see a school and then slam on brakes and back up quickly to get the jigs back down to the right depth. it workd about 75% of the time to get bit. I hope this helps somebody out and answers some questions. Tight lines ya'll!

Nice. Heading back to Badin in the morning. Hope to see the fish where we left them.

They there, but it's been tougher to get bit. Hopefully they'll be over this shock of all the fresh water by now. Good luck tomorrow and we found them just as good in several areas similar to that one too. Hope ya'll catch a bunch out there!

Great tip, I'll have to use this next time I'm out. Explains why I couldn't find a school that I marked the other day before I can get my lines back out when I turned around.

Mttorney....I normally look for area with several schools close together since the chances of setting up before they leave is slum to none. Troll figure eights and circles and pay attention to where the schools are. They been traveling certain routes lately it seems. Those open water fish are hard to stay on and they are moving fast.

Im typically trolling figure eights, but I didn't think of them moving that fast. Im needing to learn my side imaging and downing imaging more, as well as regular 2D. That will definitely help me get on the fish better.

Thanks for taking the time to upload a pic of your finder and do a little explaining. I tried to take a pic at another time on our trip but it didn't turn out well enough to post. It was reading that the depth was something like 40' but for the bottom 10' it was reading something. I was having a hard time believing that there was a 10' thick bait ball right at the bottom. This went on for several feet not just a couple. I really need to upgrade to a better finder with some side imaging but I want to master what I'm looking at before wasting a few hundred on a fancier toy.

Thanks for the picture. It will help when I can upgrade the DF on my boat.

That 10' ball may have been a brush pile on the bottom, we got hung in one yesterday in 45 ft of water, Rookie those fish were in the back of the creek yesterday. I think my son and I are gonna go back to Badin Wednesday and try for some stripers. I'll be in a blue and white carolina skiff.

Keep the pictures coming guys with your down imaging and add some side-imaging if you don't mind. We may want to start a thread on here for just posting images from fishfinders. This time of year they are schooled up and looking at your images will help me when I am able to upgrade.

I will post more when I get back on the water.

Is your 998 in switchfire mode. Thanks for the pict

Great info Chris . Keep tracking those crappie , theyre moving a lot right now , if you miss a couple days , the search will have to continue . Right now ive heard from friends in sc the crappie are on the edge of the channels be it deep creeks or the main .

Great picture! Thanks for the info

Thanks for picture and explanation. I need to get you to teach me how to use my HB 898. When is your next class?

Newly the graph was in max mode in the switchfire settings in that pic and sensitivity was about 13 I think. I normally leave it around 13 or 14 most of the time. It took me a while to figure out my hb, but I love it now. down imaging wasn't that hard to get a handle on, but side imaging is a bit tricky. I will say this that I know to be true about down imaging and side imaging, you will get the best images going about 2-4 mph than sitting still or going slower than that or faster than that. The down image beams and side image beams are not coned shaped and are very very thin, maybe just a few thousandths. This is how you get such a clear pic because it's a bunch of shots constantly layered on top of each other. So sitting still or going very slow won't paint a very good picture. Also, fish look a lot different too. They in general look a lot smaller return on down image since they are in the "cone" for a split second. If you're sitting still you will see more arch type marks than moving with down image since the fish are moving but you and you're not moving by them.

Right now I am keeping mine on the 3 screen shot so I can compare what am seeing.. I still need to get the sensitivities right though. The fish I caught Saturday I could not see on either of the views. I can however pick the the bait balls very well.

I don't know if this is true but I saw on you tube that the slower you move the slower the chart speed needs to be.

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Originally Posted by Rookie12

Newly the graph was in max mode in the switchfire settings in that pic and sensitivity was about 13 I think. I normally leave it around 13 or 14 most of the time. It took me a while to figure out my hb, but I love it now. down imaging wasn't that hard to get a handle on, but side imaging is a bit tricky. I will say this that I know to be true about down imaging and side imaging, you will get the best images going about 2-4 mph than sitting still or going slower than that or faster than that. The down image beams and side image beams are not coned shaped and are very very thin, maybe just a few thousandths. This is how you get such a clear pic because it's a bunch of shots constantly layered on top of each other. So sitting still or going very slow won't paint a very good picture. Also, fish look a lot different too. They in general look a lot smaller return on down image since they are in the "cone" for a split second. If you're sitting still you will see more arch type marks than moving with down image since the fish are moving but you and you're not moving by them.

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Lol. That's what I meant max mode. This is what me and Lynn cook were fishing around the other day. Only caught 5 crappie all day. Half of the creek was like this. Beat all I ever seen.

Pict. Sorry so blurry.

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Thank you very much for this information and picture. I am learning how to
use my Hb 597 DI and trying to figure out the images. i use a lake navigation card to try to identify the topo and find likely structure. I can ID bait balls, but sometimes i can't believe what I am seeing is fish when they are real thick and I am not catching anything! I will post a picture when I get a good one. I did learn somewhere that those straight lines that run diagonally towards the surface aren't fish coming up to say hello. They're just bubbles.

If you see a bait ball and think it may be fish balled up tight switch to down image and if it's crappie it will look like a bunch of individual spots. If it's bait it will look cloudy. Crappie look. Dry different than bait. I'll try to get a pic of a school of crappie vs a bait ball. Its not hard to tell the difference once you see them. Newly I don't run my fish id at all. Sometimes it makes it hard to tell between fish and bait. The 597 is a good unit too. I have one on the bow.

A few pic of DI and SI

Goodness. That's some detail on that finder. Which unit do you have genec?

998. had a lot of pic but found wife deleted most,will post some later when I go

Is the pict on the bottom lowrance. I've been looking at side imaging Picts on the computer and the lowrance has got great ones. I've got a 998 as well and need to learn it better.

The bottom pic is my friend don g on his lowrance,wife put his in wrong file,if you have either unit then you got a good one,we sometimes compare our units,sometimes his look better and sometimes mine look better,just how they are adjusted for that situratoin,most times i don't adjust mine unless trying to pick up something in real hard bottom or real soft bottom,other wise it is already good enough for me to interpret

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Originally Posted by JordanLimit

Keep the pictures coming guys with your down imaging and add some side-imaging if you don't mind. We may want to start a thread on here for just posting images from fishfinders. This time of year they are schooled up and looking at your images will help me when I am able to upgrade.

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That is a good idea. We started one on the SC forum a few years back and it has been very helpful as the technology advances. Hard to keep up with all the changes, but with everyone sharing info it helps.
Here is a link to ours. Some of the early stuff is outdated now since the thread started in 2006. http://www.crappie.com/crappie/showt...nterpretations

The first pic that gene put up is what crappie look like on down image, like a bunch of dots versus clouds when it's bait. Sometimes an untrained eye can mistake crappie for bait and vice versa when the crappie are schooled up tight. A quick switch to down image will tell the tale. After seing it a few times on 2d sonar though, you can tell the difference. I should have posted some bait pictures from my bait run to high rock tonight. I went to get some shad to catfish Badin tomorrow and had some really good views of bait I could have got but I was ready to get bait and get back home. What I thought was bait at the first spot I went to ended up being thousands of 7 inch crappie. I got a couple hundred probably in my 10 ft. net in one throw. Had a hard time getting it in the boat, but just dumped them back in the lake. high rock has a serious problem with these little fish. If I was fishing for crappie I could have caught all I wanted, but I didn't see a keeper in the mess of them I was in. I did get some big fat gizzard shad though. hopefully I'll have some pics of some big badin hawg blues to post tomorrow. I'm bringing my crappie rods too though in case I get tired of fighting big catfish!

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We ended up pulling a couple of nice 11" slabs from this group. We fished Jordan yesterday with minnows and ended up with a decent catch. I'll post the fish pic once my wife gets it from her camera. I love fishing this time of year when there's virtually nobody on the water. Fished Harris on Sat. and there was less than 10 boats on the lake unfortunately the fish did not cooperate.