A longer day but got a couple

Yes, this what I said, too....
Sometime fish is following the lure when you raise it up, and you see it is the same one which was at the bottom.
However, more frequently I see the shade comes from nowhere, detected only on entrance to the cone of signal and having fast attack to bait.
On screen you see that as coming from the bottom, looks like same way as following fish on slow move up does, but not in reality.

I am playing with sensitivity on my fishfinder, trying to keep combination of sensitivity and contrast ( Hummingbirds Helix 7) to see every distant shade, trained in the past on Lake Simcoe chasing Lakers The best sonar performance, IMXO, is when you see a bit of noise on the screen, but clearly separating objects from that noise. The width of reliable fish detection quite large that on clear screen and just fish shades under the boat.

Yes, those that come out of nowhere can for sure be from outside of the cone. But those that are seen for a bit on bottom and then come up...well, we know what they were. These ones can also rocket up very, very quickly. It really depends on their mood and also how fast you reel up. Sometimes, too fast and they turn away. Sometimes too slow and they continue to follow but no strike either. It can be frustrating sometimes
Interesting observation with the sonar performance. I will play around with the sensitivity and colour line to be able to see the sharp change in the thermocline. In general, I like the screen to be clear of noise but sensitive enough to see my lure (and reasonably decent amounts of baitfish) well but I find that sometimes, I have to change the sensitivity at different times because it can get noisier or less sensitive (if that makes any sense) - I am suspecting it may be extra noise from wind and waves???
On a similar note, do you (or anyone reading this) know why anyone may want to have any surface clutter? What is the benefit of having any surface clutter? For my kind of fishing, I haven't found a need to keep any surface clutter.
I also started fishing for WF on Simcoe and for many, many years (even when there was no closed season and I believe when there was no limit on them - I was pretty young then Sometimes, there is a lot of down time when ice fishing so there is much more time to play around with sonar settings, esp. if you are in a rental commercial hut and can't just pick up and move to another location.

Pretty awesome...how do they taste?...compared to rainbow?

I’d trade 12 whitefish for 2 nice rainbows any day. But the answer is very light flaky and mild.

I’d trade 12 whitefish for 2 nice rainbows any day. But the answer is very light flaky and mild.

Hi Nick,
Whitefish his its own beauty, best for making pies, IMXO.
Rainbow ( steelheads in reality, right? ) I am using for other dishes, specially for light salted and dry cured to desired softness filet
By the way, whities are good for the same as well.
Both are ideal eating fish.

Hi John,
I believe you read already about this "surface clutter" feature, one of these videos here:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiMkLlHUpDQ[/YOUTUBE]

I am completely turning it down to nil, as it has some value for shallow areas and do bad things when you fishing deeper water, this what we are doing mostly and at least what I feel and see on screen.

Same thing is about turning on and off Ice fishing mode - it has some advantages and disadvantages when fishing from boat, some misinterpretations in detailed signal interpretation, I would say misleading ones.

I’d trade 12 whitefish for 2 nice rainbows any day. But the answer is very light flaky and mild.

Hi Nick,
Whitefish his its own beauty, best for making pies, IMXO.
Rainbow ( steelheads in reality, right? ) I am using for other dishes, specially for light salted and dry cured to desired softness filet
By the way, whities are good for the same as well.
Both are ideal eating fish.

Both are delicious it’s more of a regional thing here where whitefish are so plentiful here and I rarely get to fish for rainbow so I love it so much.

I like rainbow done filets on a baking sheet in the bbq or oven with salt, onion, and lemon or lime. And lots of butter. White fish are also great this way, but whitefish also great for smoking and frying. Beer batter whitefish is fantastic.
Send a recipe for fish pie. It interested me.
I agree they are both excellent fish to eat.

Now I’m hungry.

What Mykola said. My little guy really likes eating whitefish and when I get a chance, I will get some yellow perch for him to try as well (should be a hit since they are both very mild tasting fish). Some people may prefer a species that taste richer and more fishy.

Yes. And I generally like to have most settings on manual. What I like with the Hook 4 is that it has an auto-sensitivity BUT you can still adjust sensitivity a bit either way so that has worked for me instead of going fully manual on that function.

Hi Nick,
Its quite simple - fish pie:

Whitefish(or rainbow trout, up to you) cleaned, scaled, fileted, removing all bones, specially small side ones.
Fry one chopped onion on kind of ghee butter, or any, you choice.
Peel two potatoes.
Defrost yeast puff dough, unroll and cut to two parts.
Baking sheet cover with parchment paper, oil it a bit.
Sheet of dough first, on it - layer of sliced potato, distribute fried onion over, salt paper on top.
Good thick layer of fish, stripes or chunks, does not matter, slightly overlapping - they are shrinking.
Again, salt and paper over fish, you can add some slices of butter on top, it will add some taste.
After that - on oven at 425-450 F, until it baked, it takes something from 45 mins to 1 hr., depends on your stove.

Another image

That looks great dmaster, looks very similar to a recipe for a Scottish fish pie I’ve been meaning to try: https://foodanddrink.scotsman.com/recipes/m...vie-mclaughlin/

Looks fantastic