there is a book at some tackle stores that has a Lowrance/Eagle flavour but most is applicable to other brands. You'd learn a hell of a lot more and quicker too if you took someone out who could show you the ins and outs in person on the water. Other than that it's just time on the water looking and remembering. Even the best book will only tell you so much, you really need to figure most out on your own and how it relates to your unit.

 Hi fisherking

I've just downloaded your fishfinder's manual and had a quick look. My first question is: have you read the installation and mounting instructions for the unit and the transducer? Have you mounted the unit and installed the transducer and connected up the wiring?

If so, I'd be following the basic operating instructions while you are out on the water to make sure you are seeing what's shown in the manual.

To start with, leave things in Auto, but once you've got the hang of it, then start playing with the range, gain, etc.

Starting off in shallow water, take note of the images you get when you travel over a sandy bottom, then compare it to a weed bed.....then when you find yourself a bit of reef, you'll get a different image. 

Like Tim said, just get out there and play with it....they are pretty easy to get your head around.

You can always take a picture of the screen and post it here for comment.

regards
rusty...

It is installed correctly & I do know how to work it. My problem is I am unsure how to "read" the images. I can't tell the difference between weed, sand, rock, coral.

Thanks.

I've got a Furuno FCV-620 but I'm sure the images I see will be very similar to yours.

When I'm travelling over a sandy bottom, the bottom echo is quite thin: typically a 6mm red band, with no colour below it. When I'm over weedy bottom, the bottom echo thickens up and there's some colour streaks below the bottom echo.

Reef and coral shelves also give a similar image. If I knew how to upload an image into this post, I'd show you some of my images (I can add images to a new thread but not into an ongoing thread...any help with this from anyone would be greatly appreciated, thanks).

Fish images show up as red arches or clusters, usually just above the bottom or anywhere in the water column....bait balls can fill your screen sometimes!!

I know there's members here who can distinguish types of fish by their arch 'signature' but I'm not there yet.

I can PM you some images if that would help....just let me know.

regards
rusty...

Plenty of pics you could use in this post rusty if you find one close enough to what you want

http://fishwrecked.com/forum/sounder-photos

From what I can tell you can right click on the photo you want to use (have it open in another window / tab), click Copy, and then come back to your response to this post and right click / Paste it.

Thanks Rusty, that would be great.

Thanks for the link Ben. Some interesting stuff on there.

 Hi Dean

Having trouble posting some sounder pics in this thread, so I've sent you a PM with my email address. If you can reply, I'll forward some pics to you.

regards
rusty...