Fish
To view the natural echoes from fish and other objects in the water, turn the fish alarm symbols
off. Many fishermen have heard that an arch is a good way of locating fish, but other objects you
troll across may also produce arches.
A better way of determining fish is to watch for subtle patterns on the graph. Solid horizontal lines
across the screen are often fish hovering under the transducer. These lines may go up and down,
suggesting some movement if they are fish. Generally, thicker marks come from larger fish. Clouds
of pixels are often schooling baitfish. Groups of diagonal lines are usually bubbles rising steadily
up from the bottom. As you get more familiar with the Fishin' Buddy 4200™ and the water that
you fish in, you will pick out many other patterns as well.
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READING THE GRAPH
The bottom graph is created by drawing all of the echoes from a single burst in a vertical column
on the display, with the echoes from deepest objects drawn lowest on the display. After all the
echoes from the burst are drawn, the graph is shifted to the left and the process is repeated.
Grayscale
The Fishin' Buddy 4200™ uses shades of gray to generally indicate the size or density of objects
in the graph. In fact, it is the strength of the echo that determines how it will be shaded. Small
fish and light weeds typically return weak echoes, where a hard bottom returns strong ones.
This can be very useful when you want to know more about the areas you fish. The Fishin' Buddy
4200™ can display these gray shades in either the True View
TM
or Gray View modes.
The True View
TM
display is natural and shows the weaker echoes in lighter shades and the
stronger echoes in darker shades. A clear hard bottom will appear as a thick black area, while a
soft or weed-covered bottom is usually thinner and displayed with grey on top of the black.
Small fish and light weeds are shown in grey. Strong thermal clines or large fish directly under
the transducer may appear black.
Gray View
is used to more clearly define the bottom. In this mode, the strongest echoes are
shown as a gray shade. A clear hard bottom will appear as a thin black line above a thick gray
area, while a soft or weed-covered bottom will appear as a black area above a thinner gray.
Small fish and light weeds will typically be shown in black. Strong thermal clines or large fish
directly under the transducer may appear gray.
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