Strange sonar image

I found an orange marker buoy in the middle of the lake, one of those you use to mark a fishing spot; assume that someone forgot it. I cruised around at 3mph to see if it looked like a good crappie spot because that is what it would be in the middle of this lake. There are some logs on the bottom and, shocking to me, what appears to be bream beds! It is quite a large area and winds around on bottom. Bream don't spawn at 28 feet! What the heck is this? If it's not a bream bed, I don't know what it is. And if it is, only thing I can imagine is could it possible the lake was, say, 25 feet lower in the distant past and bream bedded there? This lake is 70 years old. I do not know when it could have been drawn down that far. FWIW, the maximum depth I have found on this lake is 32 feet, not too far from this spot.

On a side note, I have been wondering lately how long a bream bed will look the same. From what I have seen, active beds are well-defined once active. Wonder if they silt over pretty fast. As in months? Have been thinking that active bream beds look crisp, with well-defined honey comb look and with time (months?) that crispness fades due to silt. (I am new to modern sonar side imaging.)

On right side of image below.


Attachment 402370

Also, in the water column, those yellow cloudy images, do you think those are fish? They are not arcs like the common fish sonar image. (Humminbird Helix 9.)

looks like beds to me , are there tilapia in that lake ? i think they spawn pretty deep from what i remember ?

This lake is new to me and it's a professionally-managed lake for largemouth bass. Also has coppernose bluegill stocked. And shad. Maybe some type of minnow, seems I recall they mentioned a baitfish other than shad. The only species I am aware of, that I have seen are bass, coppernose bluegill, redear, crappie, gar, jackfish (chain pickerel) and carp. I have heard those are grass carp, I know they are big. Somebody told me they had a hydrilla problem years ago and stocked some grass carp. I haven't seen any catfish but I can't imagine a lake around here without catfish.

I have seen shellcracker beds in a clear, deep, spring fed "river" . I think the beds were in water about 16 to 20 ft deep. Most of the time I would catch them in 2 to 5 foot water where the river dumped into the lake. I have gigged or bow shot tilapia in less than 1 ft of water up to 16ft deep when I had a 20 gig pole. Those do not look like the tilapia beds I normally see in central florida..Drop a bait down and see what bites.

Can't remember any that deep but have seen them at 20 ft. Especially on Pickwick .

Catfish beds maybe? They look too far apart to be bluegill or shellcracker beds.

Catfish my guess too. I ain't familiar with tilapia unless it's in a bag iqf style at Walmart. Lol

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Whatever it is, IF it is beds, it is a species that spawns in a colony or collective beds, whatever they are officially called. My first thought was catfish except that I do not know if catfish spawn in such a collective manner, like bream. They certainly like to hang around at depth.

:popcorn

i thought catfish spawned in cover ? those look out in the wide open range

Turn range down to 45 and take another look .