Bottom: When set to detailed imaging, your Deeper can help you determine whether the bottom is hard or soft. When the sonar pulses sent from your Deeper are reflected by the bottom, a hard bottom will return a stronger signal than a soft bottom.

When using Day screen color mode, the bottom may be displayed as: yellow (hardest bottom), red (medium) and blue (softest). The bottom will always give the strongest signal return of any object; therefore, it will have the most intensive color. The bottom is shown as a continuous, intensely colored line running across the bottom of the screen. 

Second sonar return: You may also see a second sonar return: this is caused when the sonar signal bounces between the bottom and the surface of the water and back again. Hard bottoms will show a strong second return, while soft bottoms will show a very weak one or none at all.

Fish Icon: Fish Icons are displayed in three different sizes. The classification of fish by size depends on many variables, with weight being only one of them. This means Fish Icons do not always accurately reflect an actual fish’s size. If you want to judge more accurately the fish’s actual size, you should choose Detailed Smart Imaging and untick Fish Icons. With these settings you can judge quite accurately the size of a fish, although identifying the fish can be more difficult at first. Read more on this topic here.

Water surface: Along the top of the screen, you will see a blue water surface line with a grouping of intense colors. This area is surface clutter, which can be caused by waves or other sonar interference on the surface of the water. Surface clutter is the blind zone, where the sonar will not detect any fishes or underwater objects.

The length of surface clutter depends the beam angle and frequency used. The higher the frequency – the smaller the surface clutter is, and the less depth Deeper will need to operate.

When using Narrow CHIRP beam (675 kHz), surface clutter zone will be stretching down to 0.15m (0.5 ft) from the surface of water. No fish or underwater objects will be detected in that area. Deeper sonar will display “too shallow or too deep” error message if the actual depth of water is less than 0.15m (0.5 ft).

Mid CHIRP (290 kHz) will have a surface clutter zone of 0.6m (2 ft) and will not detect any fishes or underwater objects in that area.

Wide CHIRP (100 kHz) will have a surface clutter zone of 0.8m (2.6 ft) and will not detect any fishes or underwater objects in that area. 

Weed: Weed beds and vegetation are shown in green.

Schools of fish: Deeper sonars will clearly show schools of bait fish, which will be represented as clouds of different shapes and sizes. Their exact appearance will depend on the number of fish, and the speed of your boat if you are trolling.