No expert but im guessing that's a thermocline.

If you had too much gain it could possibly be an echo.

Its an HDS10, set to auto gain, adjusted to -6% to clean it up.

Dave0308 wrote: smudge wrote: If you had too much gain it could possibly be an echo.   Maybe but would you get an echo in 190m on 200 hz ??

Pretty unlikely at that depth, but it may be possible

Clean through where the barb is formed, frustrating to say the least, first shot at a stripey this season.

I find on mine it's a hiccup, wanting to be at 50 Hz it's a bit of a pain. I stop turn off sometimes it clears.
An echo just a hiccup in operating. I run a 1 kW tranny.
I think it's a limited quality component, the sounder that is.

The hooks, they detoririate at quite a rate.
With such a fine gauge, the smallest amount of pitting shows an overall failure about to happen.
Don't get me wrong I love these hooks, but realistically I need to check them every run and replace frequently.
And to be sure, don't fool yourselves, they are a thin gauge of hook and at certain angles, even when new will be prone to breaking, that's just common sense or basic maths.
Irrespective of the meritorious catches some have made.
Bigger hooks break. Crap hooks bend.

What sort of sign are we looking for on the sounder when trolling?

We dont get it with that density out there. Usually a blue layer in the 80m zone and sometimes it condenses to red and has blue splodges separating from it (like your second photo). Our best guess is a layer of squid and sometimes 2 layers. It is not everywhere and when we see 2 layers and/or red (like in your 3rd photo), we thinks its under pressure from predators and we work it. Perhaps the first photo is it starting to come under pressure or you have tried to clean it up too much? What do you ahve surface clarity and noise rejection set on?

I would be more worried about my hooks .......

Me too! I had one of those hooks snap on 4kg drag with only a 100m of line out .