BigBendFishing.Net

I fish out of Carrabelle. I have a furuno 600L color bottom machine. I want to know how to recognize the swiss cheese, coral, sponge bottom everyone talks about. Hoe should my machine be set?

Swiss cheese bottom is normally flat with with holes in it. On the furuno color machines this hard bottom shows up as a thicker darker red line on the bottom. Look at this picture on the left is what harder bottom will look like.


To learn the difference between hard and soft bottom, find a place you know is sand and look at the thickness of the red line. The thicker the line, the harder the bottom. One feature I really like on the older JRC machines was a numerical value from 0-8 told how hard the bottom was. Anything over 7 and you better look around. I wish this feature was on the newer machines.

Sponges and "live bottom" show up as green/yellow "fur" on top of a thicker red line. Fur is my term for it, but if you imagine sand bottom as just plain, live bottom looks like it grew a bunch of green fur on it. Generally the thicker the fur, the better the bottom. It sort of looks like this, excuse the crude drawing.

thanks for the reply

Tom,

I too have a 600L and have experienced the same frustration as plumbbob. Are there any sites or books that you are aware of that I can goto/get that go into great detail about reading color bottom machines?

THANX!

I have no idea. If you find one, post it here. It is the question I get asked more often. I can normally show people what to look for on their bottom machine, but I find it hard to describe it to them. Read the tips and tricks thread about getting the most out of your bottom machine. It has some good all around info.

Tom, are you referring to :

"How to make your Lowrance work for you! " ??

That was the only subject I saw.

SR, that is the thread. It has alot of good info for setting up your bottom machine.

It's time to try and educate SR again!
Tom wrote:

The thicker the line, the harder the bottom.

What Tom mentioned about how to determine the difference between bottom types is different than what I had been operating under. Now I'm wondering if I was mistaken in my thinking or if it makes a difference between manufactures or if the unit is BW or color, etc. I would think that sound waves would be the same regardless of the unit but some of our members who are less technically challenged than I, may be able to help me.

I have one of the low end BW hummingbird units.



In the operations section of the manual it states the following:

The graphic depiction of the bottom provides the user with an
effective tool for understanding the composition of the bottom.
If the bottom is hard and smooth, the bottom depiction is narrow
and dense. If the bottom is soft mud or sand, the depiction will
be thick and less dense. This indicates that much of the signal
is absorbed by the soft bottom. If the bottom is rocky or rugged
in composition, the depiction is of varying density and textured
in appearance.

Following figure is provided:



(Apologies for the poor image.)

I've been operating based on my belief that the instructions above were telling me that a hard bottom would be a thin dark line and the thicker the line the softer the bottom which seems to be different than what has been presented for the furuno's. Can someone help me out with this? Thanks.

If the bottom is hard and smooth, the bottom depiction is narrow
and dense. If the bottom is soft mud or sand, the depiction will
be thick and less dense.

This is contradictory to almost every other manufacturer's specs for bottom finders. Bud you are my friend and I think you are a great guy but Hummingbird FishFinders are peices of shi........take mushrooms, and are not worth a flip for finding good grouper bottom.

I wish I could tell you why they are different, but I can't.

GOSH TOM.... ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME SOMETHING??

I'ts gonna sound like an excuse now but my hummingbird was the only piece of electronics that came on the boat when I bought it. But having very little knowledge or experience with bottom machines I can't really say that I would have purchased anything different at that time.

The info I posted came straight off the hummingbird site and reads the same for the 100, 200, and 300 series units. I can't speak to the other models. If this is contrary or incorrect information I'm glad to find that out. (maybe that's why I have so much trouble finding good bottom! )

I do respect and appreciate your input as well as any comments yet to come!. HOW ELSE WILL I EVER LEARN SOMEPUN!

I personally don't have any experience with these but here are some videos regarding your machine...If you get one let me know how they are.

http://www.bennettmarine.com/furuno.html

so the thicker the red line the harder the bottom??????

Just ordered the video for my machine. I'll let you know if they're any good.

THANX for the tip!

Got my video for my Furuno 600L yesterday. It's pretty good in showing you how to operate the unit and it's features. It does NOTHING to show you what "Hard Bottom" or "swiss chese" bottom looks like on the unit.

It really didn't show me anything I hadn't already figured out for myself (without reading the manual) the first time I used the unit. I guess if you bought the book "Windows for Dummies" this video would work just fine for you... "FCV-600L for Dummies". I'm not really putting the video down as poor, just elementary.