Fish Finder screen shots (with description)

[Homeshore]

I thought it would be fun if people would post some fish finder screen shots and describe what we're looking at.

This is one wire going down (hand trolling, notice the pauses). You can see the cannon ball at the bottom, and the individual spreads above. A halibut came up off the bottom and hit the lead spoon, dragging everything out of the transducer cone. It broke off and the gear swung back under the boat and started reading again.

[Homeshore]

School of chums following the gear.
It looks like they are swimming up and down the line, inspecting each spread.
When I get a reading like this, turning usually gets them to bite.

[Kelper]

cool thread. Those little lowrances show a lot. I never snap as many pictures as I should as I've had some wild looking sounder screens. He's some pics of some kings chasing my gear around in the Chicken Hole, on Noyes Island. Shallow fishing. I've not had that little sounder in awhile though.

[Salty]

I was just at the NSRAA Board meeting in Petersburg. Some interesting notes. Trollers caught over a million SE Alaska chums last year worth over 5 million dollars. Projecting out as best as possible to 2030 NSRAA staff estimates 78% of commercial harvest value of their production will come from chums. In order for trollers to catch their Alaska Board of Fisheries allocated share of SE enhanced salmon, if everything else remains the same, then trollers will need to be catching about 2.7 million chums a year. I also had a chance to go over the chum harvest by trollers per day at several sites.
What surprised me was the relative low average rate of production per day, 100-200 fish at the peak of the runs. In order for trollers to move toward their allocated share of SE enhanced salmon value, 27-32%, the fleet needs to improve their ability to harvest chums. The Chum Trollers Association, Alaska Trollers Association, and your troll reps on the various hatchery boards are working hard to improve troll opportunity on SE enhanced salmon, but, net groups are resistant, and I understand their position, to give trollers more chum troll opportunity in terminal areas, at the expense of net time, when most trollers have not adequately geared up in terms of effective chum gear, mechanical systems on their vessels for trolling slow, and effective, efficient unloading systems.
But, a record of over 300 trollers made round chum troll deliveries (an indication of targeting chums) in 2013. And, the fleet is catching on that while getting chums to bite can be extremely challenging, particularly at the high production levels some achieve, when you have it dialed in they are the best biting salmon. So, while I am reluctant to put too much information on an open forum, or pretend that I know much, and am aware that I will do better if less trollers fish chums, I am always willing to respond to PM's and give some help to specific questions about preparing your vessel to fish slow, set up ergonomic round fish handling and unloading systems, help support your troll leaders who are fighting for your opportunity, and generic questions about gear and technique.
Here is a shot of a school of chums, some are diving on gear.

[Salty]

Great shot of the halibut. Great shot of flashers, which can sometime fool you into thinking there are fish following the gear. Great shot of three fish coming off the bottom in the last post before mine. A friendly hint, it is usually not such a good idea to post the lat lon of pictures of your fishing hole. Even if you don't mind sharing it, some of the other guys around you might not appreciate it. (I get some criticism for posting as much as I do, but I am a thick skinned old goat who doesn't much care what others think of me anymore.)

[Kelper]

haha, I hear you about the lat/long. I did identify it as the chicken hole on noyes island though. Not really a power troll spot up on that flat, but it was some fun hand cranking!