tried adjusting your sensitivity settings? might help clear up some of that clutter

Thanks, theres been useful stuff. 

Troutzilla wrote: I have a similar model Garmin 9 inch echomap ( might be the same? ) mines 3 years old too. I get pretty good readings on mine although I don't fish really deep, mostly 50 metres or less. I don't have many pics but heres a recent one in 23m of a snapper haystack on the bottom, you can actually see one of our lines off to the right and  I'd say that's the softbait or jig being lifted and dropped back far right near the bottom.

Not off my screen but exactly same as how my  garmin shows fish, how do tell they are snapper? Snapper arent always on bottom.Can be found mid water,buggered if I know what they feed on at that depth but have dropped line to bottom for nil then wound up to depth showing fish and bingo.

letsgetem wrote: So are haystacks a group of snapper, tight together so they dont show as separate fish on the sonar? What are they doing - not feeding?

You really need to spend time on youtube & find tutorial videos of your particular brand of sounder & learn up on them in different modes, be it sonar, down image & especially side imaging
In the last 10 months or so, I've spent ages learning about my Humminbird helix on youtube & its really only now, I'm getting proper value out of my sounder

Haystacks ? This all depends on what colour palette you use & what your understanding of the different colours & patterns that show up on your sonar image
To me, this haystack is definitely NOT snapper. If it had lots of red in it, then yes, that would be snapper on my sounder
The down imaging below sonar, my understanding, shows baitfish with bigger baitfish in the mix (long lines in front of smaller stuff)


With my sounder, the 2 arches are snapper. If more red in the arches, its either bigger snaps rather than undersize or more snaps of any size in a concentrated arch


This image, with the blue circle, if I see that in the main channel (usually over 10m) on the Manukau, anchor on it, I catch snapper..... unsure if its a small shellfish bed


On a different note, I was chatting to 2 different salesmen at marine deals about targeting gurnard.
One fala said with his Garmin using 1kw transducer, the way he had it set up, zooming in on the bottom 2m in sonar mode, he would look for individual small blue dots, when he found them, he would drop down on it & catch gurnard then move on to the next one
The other sales fala had a mid range Lowrance sounder with 5-600w transducer, when he zoomed in on the bottom 2m, he would see red dots hard down, drop down on them & catch gurnard...... both guys doing it that way on the Kaipara for gurnard
So.... lots to learn about sounders & getting it to work for you & put fish in the bin

BotStomper wrote: The little fish icons are a pisstake by the way, your sonar can't tell the difference between echoes. A literal turd drifting by would get a fish icon on it.

my understanding the return is air in swim bladder.your turd would be clutter.