Great Lakes - reading fish finder help lake erie

I am new to fishing and could use some help with the finder. I am fishing for perch. I go to the local bait shop to find out where the perch are. I get to the area but I am unsure what I should be looking for on my finder. I know they school, but what does a school of perch look like on the finder, how far off the bottom. I tend to bring in a lot of non perch when I perch. Any tips would be great for me and the kids.
Garth

Garth,
here are a few links that might help.

http://www.doctorsonar.com/perch.html

http://fishandboat.com/anglerboater/2004/07jul_aug/feat_erieperch.pdf

http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100913/NWPAOUT10/309139953/-1/SPORTS

I generally start out at "traditional" perch spots. I look for marks on the bottom or near bottom. Different brands of sonars will likely show things a bit differently. When you do start catching perch, look at your fishfinder and see what the marks look like. that should help when looking for them in future.
good luck!

It's really specific to the fish finder you are using. The Lowrance I have on one of my boats doesn't show perch because they are to close to the bottom. The Humminbird on my other boat barely shows perch but the fish marks tend to blend in with the bottom line so it's also very hard to see.

I haven't seen any fish finder that clearly shows perch and would love to see a picture of a fish finder screen that clearly shows a school of perch.

Russ

They are usually right on the bottom, the way the Gain is set is very important. Readjusting it often is the way I look for them.

Perch are on the bottom and they are in schools. On the fishfinder the schools look like balls on the bottom or big almost round humps. Sometimes they look like a big mushroom on the bottom. If you have a colored fishfinder the ball will be all different colors, with a dominate color, red or green but it won't look solid like a rock or other bottom structure.

If you want to see small fish near the bottom then use your zoom feature and zoom in on the bottom few feet of the water.

on most finders the mark of a fish the size of a perch is only about one or two pixels thick if the range of the screen is 30 feet. zoom in to the bottom 3 feet and the mark will be 10 pixels thick and easier to see.

look for clouds, or lumps as mkalink said.

also turn up your "colorline" or bottom line feature if your sonar has one, you can get the hard return of the bottom (and rocks) to be bright yellow on a lowrance but the fish marks will be black or a mix of black and red.

cheers,
jerry

We have no problem marking perch with our humminbird unit. Our previous garmin unit worked great too. Its all about how you adjust and tweek your unit. Heres a pic of a school of perch we anchored on, on one of our last perch trips. We also caught walleye close to the bottom and you can see where there at on the sonar image. Right underneath the school of perch.
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z169/ftw1422/S00009.png

also turn up your "colorline" or bottom line feature if your sonar has one, you can get the hard return of the bottom (and rocks) to be bright yellow on a lowrance but the fish marks will be black or a mix of black and red.

cheers,
jerry

rough house's post show exactly what I was talking about with the bottom bright yellow and the fish marks being red. if you do not have quite as good of a screen as that shows then the marks close to bottom will look like humps or rocks on the bottom, but you can see the difference between rocks and bottom hugging fish by the color.

nice post there rough house,
Jerry

I talked to A few guys last week that only fish for perch on lake Erie.They told me the perch are not always on the bottom.I know I have caught many many right off the bottom.But these guys catch them all year long.Sometimes you will not mark alot when they suspend.But it is all about how many cranks off the bottom to fish.So if you know perch are in A area.Try counting cranks off the bottom till you start catching them.

We have no problem marking perch with our humminbird unit. Our previous garmin unit worked great too. Its all about how you adjust and tweek your unit. Heres a pic of a school of perch we anchored on, on one of our last perch trips. We also caught walleye close to the bottom and you can see where there at on the sonar image. Right underneath the school of perch.



My Lowrance unit shows balls like your screen is showing but I've always assumed it was a school of bait fish. I've never caught perch more than 3' off of the bottom but your screen picture shows the school as high as 15' off of the bottom which is why I assumed they were bait fish.

Russ

Yea Russ. This is usually the kinds of screen shots we get while perch fishing. We do get marks right off the bottom at times as well. I always tell clients to drop st. down to the bottom and jig a couples of times and if no bites reel up a little and find where the hot spot is. The thing you have to remember is that just because your reading fish right on the bottom doesn't mean that there right on the bottom. Depending on where in the sonar cone the fish are there depth can be confusing and sometimes off up to 10 feet shallower depending on the depth your fishing, believe it or not. Although most perch are caught near the bottom.
Now walleye fishing, this can really come into play especially if the walleye are suspended in the water column. The cone angle really plays a considerable role. Im really just learning this myself. Another captain pointed me to this. Understanding how sonar works is a little tricky. Heres an article that really opened my eyes on how to really read sonar accurately. http://biggeorgiaspots.com/boats-and-electronics/2d-traditional-sonar/73-understanding-sonar-cone-angle.html?showall=1.
Please also click on the "Part 1" section as well. Alot of great information on this website as well. I suggest reading all articles about the sonar that are on the left pane.
Good Luck
RH

heres another shot of a school of perch. This is a huge school.http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z169/ftw1422/photo7.jpg

Yea Russ. This is usually the kinds of screen shots we get while perch fishing. We do get marks right off the bottom at times as well. I always tell clients to drop st. down to the bottom and jig a couples of times and if no bites reel up a little and find where the hot spot is. The thing you have to remember is that just because your reading fish right on the bottom doesn't mean that there right on the bottom. Depending on where in the sonar cone the fish are there depth can be confusing and sometimes off up to 10 feet shallower depending on the depth your fishing, believe it or not. Although most perch are caught near the bottom.
Now walleye fishing, this can really come into play especially if the walleye are suspended in the water column. The cone angle really plays a considerable role. Im really just learning this myself. Another captain pointed me to this. Understanding how sonar works is a little tricky. Heres an article that really opened my eyes on how to really read sonar accurately. http://biggeorgiaspots.com/boats-and-electronics/2d-traditional-sonar/73-understanding-sonar-cone-angle.html?showall=1.
Please also click on the "Part 1" section as well. Alot of great information on this website as well. I suggest reading all articles about the sonar that are on the left pane.
Good Luck
RH

Thanks for the tips and the link.

Russ