Fishfinder
This article needs additional citations for verification. (November 2011) |
A fishfinder or sounder (Australia) is an instrument used to locate fish underwater by detecting reflected
Fathometer
Fish finders were derived from
Operating theory
In operation, an electrical impulse from a
The process can be repeated up to 40 times per second and eventually results in the bottom of the ocean being displayed versus time (the fathometer function that eventually spawned the sporting use of fishfinding).
The temperature and pressure sensitivity capability of fish finder units allow one to identify the exact location of the fish in the water by the use of a temperature gauge. Functionality present in many modern fish finders also have track back capabilities in order to check the changes in movement in order to switch position and location whilst fishing.
It is easy to get more detail at screen when the frequency of fish finder is high. Deep-sea trawlers and commercial fishermen normally use low-frequency which is in between 50-200 kHz where modern fish finders have multiple frequencies to view split screen results.
General interpretation
The image above, at right, clearly shows the bottom structure—plants, sediments and hard bottom are discernible on sonar plots of sufficiently high power and appropriate frequency. Slightly more than halfway up from the bottom to the left of the screen centre and about a third away from the left side, this image is also displaying a fish – a light spot just to the right of a 'glare' splash from the camera's flashbulb. The X-axis of the image represents time, oldest (and behind the soundhead) to the left, most recent bottom (and current location) on the right; thus the fish is now well behind the transducer, and the vessel is now passing over a dip in the ocean floor or has just left it behind. The resulting distortion depends on both the speed of the vessel and how often the image is updated by the echo sounder.
Fish arches
With the Fish Symbol feature disabled, an angler can learn to distinguish between fish, vegetation, schools of
The image to the right shows a school of
General history in sporting and fishing
The first fishfinder that was marketed for consumers in America that was meant for recreational fishing was the
By the early 1970s, a common pattern of depth finder used an ultrasonic transducer immersed in water, and an electromechanical readout device. A neon lamp mounted on the end of an arm was rotated around a circular scale at a fixed speed by a small electric motor. The circular scale was calibrated in terms of depth of water. The instrument was arranged to send out a pulse of ultrasonic waves as the lamp passed the zero point of the scale. The transducer was then arranged to detect any reflected ultrasound impulses; the lamp would flash when an echo returned to the transducer, and by its position on the scale would indicate the elapsed time and therefore the depth of the water.[9] These also gave a small flickering flash for echos off of fish. Like today's low-end digital fathometers, they kept no record of the depth over time and provided no information about bottom structure. They had poor accuracy, especially in rough water, and were hard to read in bright light. Despite the limitations, they were still usable for rough estimates of depth, such as for verifying that the boat had not drifted into an unsafe area.
Eventually, CRTs were married with a fathometer for commercial fishing and the fishfinder was born. With the advent of large LCD arrays, the high power requirements of a CRT gave way to the LCD in the early 1990s and fishfinding fathometers reached the sporting markets. Nowadays, many fishfinders available for hobby fishers have color LCD screens, built-in GPS, charting capabilities, and come bundled with transducers. Today, sporting fishfinders lack only the permanent record of the big ship navigational fathometer, and that is available in high end units that can use the ubiquitous computer to store that record as well.
Fishfinders may use higher frequencies to improve the image of underwater objects.[10] Side-looking transducers provide additional visibility of underwater objects on either side of the boat's path. [11]
Commercial and naval fathometers of yesteryear used a strip chart recorder where an advancing roll of paper was marked by a stylus to make a permanent copy of the depth, usually with some means of also recording time (Each mark or time 'tic' is proportional to distance traveled) so that the strip charts could be readily compared to navigation charts and maneuvering logs (speed changes). Much of the world's ocean depths have been mapped using such recording strips. Fathometers of this type usually offered multiple (chart advance) speed settings, and sometimes, multiple frequencies as well. (Deep Ocean—Low Frequency carries better, Shallows—high frequency shows smaller structures (like fish, submerged reefs, wrecks, or other bottom composition features of interest.) At high frequency settings, high chart speeds, such fathometers give a picture of the bottom and any intervening large or schooling fish that can be related to position. Fathometers of the constant recording type are still mandated for all large vessels (100+ tons displacement) in restricted waters (i.e. generally, within 15 miles (24 km) of land).
The Furuno Fish Finder (the original from 1948) is said to be the world's first practical fishfinder; it was introduced by the Furuno brothers for use in commercial fishing vessels in 1948 in Japan.[8]
See also
- Bathymetry – Study of underwater depth of lake or ocean floors
- Depth sounding – Measuring the depths of a body of water
- Echo sounding – Measuring the depth of water by transmitting sound waves into water and timing the return
- Fessenden oscillator – Type of electro-acoustic transducer
- Sensor – Converter that measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal
- Sonar – Acoustic sensing method
References
- ISBN 9781119957492. Retrieved 4 July 2016.
- ISBN 0784474656. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
- ^ Editing Board. "Fish-finder". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 4 July 2016.
- ISBN 978-0387369457.
- ^ "Lowrance's Fish-Lo-K-Tor, the good old days?". 13 March 2006.
- ^ "About Lowrance Electronics | Lowrance".
- ^ "60 Years of Lowrance".
- ^ a b "Fish Finders Point the Way for Future Fishing | April 2018 | Highlighting Japan".
- ^ Conrad Miller, "Black Box Boating - Electronics For Power and Sail",Motor Boating, May 1970, page
- ^ "Answers to Your Top Fish Finder Questions". Sport Fishing Magazine. 17 April 2018. Retrieved 2020-05-23.
- ^ Neuman, Scott (26 September 2013). "What's Lurking In Your Lake? Sonar Turns Up Startling Finds". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-05-23.