Question about proper setup/ use of Fish Finder..

[bulletbob]

I have 2 boats with a garmin color  FF  on each.. they are older units, a 250 C and a 350C... However they are each 500 watts RMS which should be sufficient power  for how I fish even in this day of side scan, ultra definition etc...

  My issue is this.. When jigging for lakers, I can see fish,and I can watch my jig no issues there, I can read bait, structure etc, very clearly.

 However, most jiggers even 10-15 years ago  with older sounding units would  actually watch the fish approaching thier jigs, and  watch the  fish chase and hit the jig as it was racing upward... In real time.. YT is full of videos of guys doing that and some of those vids are pretty old, not using todays ultra high tech sounding gear,,, I CAN see the hits, and I  see it clearly, but its all "after the fact"... I don't see  the fish hitting the jig as it happens, only after I actually feel the hit... Am I doing something wrong with set up< perhaps scrolling speed?.... The Garmins are easy to adjust, and I feel I am missing something as guys with less powerful, cheaper, black and white sonars are seeing their fish , lure, and bait in real time, while I see it 10 or more seconds after it happens..  I  don't see "chasers", only fish that have chased and I wasn't aware of it at the time... any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong?... bob

[Sk8man]

None of the older finders were actually in REAL TIME. as the signal itself taakes time to go to the bottom and return to the transducer but on many units there is often  adjustment of the ping speed from slow to high maybe that is what you need to adjust if present in your menu settings. I don't have Garmin units so unfortunately I don't have any detailed settings info for you.

[bulletbob]

 these units have "scroll speed", not sure but I think that might be the same as scroll... My units worked fine, and I usually just  kept the scroll at whatever the factory setting is.. As stated, some of the  guys in videos were using older cheaper units than  I have, and they would say "she's chasing it, she nailed it" as they kept their eyes on the screen... Its not that big a deal,  I would just like any little edge I can get.. I will research and see if "ping speed" and scroll speed are the same.. That might be my problem.... bob

[Sk8man]

Try to adjust the scrolling speed to FAST or whatever the fastest setting is.

[Chuck Smth]

For jigging I prefer a flasher, that's the quickest and easiest to read. 

 

For a standard bottom machine the frequency is still high enough (50 kHz  is low frequency! ) and the speed of sound in water is so fast that what you see on the flasher is worst case a few milliseconds behind, so it's essentially real time. 

 

Chuck