Sonar Telemetry 101

[Musette]

This post is per special request by an Eastern European player who contacted me via Discord so he could use a translate app to ask me questions. This is for @rubiconi and all the players who want to learn how to deduce in-game sonar readings on Fishing Planet and The Fisherman.

A year ago, when I had enough game cash to purchase my first bass boat, I did so because I was interested in its sonar just like on the loading screen. I spent more time slowly motoring around waterways to scan and track fish schools than fishing onboard.

On one of my sonar scanning expeditions last year, a veteran fisher yelled at me as slowly I passed-by, "Oh look, a r-tard on a boat."

Guys, don't be a Karen. No matter how godly you think you are, if you can not tolerate other fishers conducting scientific research on a simulated waterway, please move to a private room. The developers added sonar technology for a reason. It's not just a useless boat decoration.

My little boy once told me whilst we were fishing at a public sports park, "Mom, whoever designed fish that can fly in water and birds that can swim in the sky is a great engineer." One of my dear MIT alumnus friends is not only a distinguished engineering emeritus, his sonar expertise was used to recover such famous wrecks as Titanic, Bismarck and Challenger when he was much younger. He sent my son a children's book about Uncle Marty's research on the Lochness monster. I carry the mom and son tradition of exploring and collecting data into Fishing Planet and The Fisherman with the adventure playfulness of Uncle Marty.

I map fish schools so I can estimate:

• School placement
• Unique place holders
• Underwater terrain
• Track school migration

Falcon Lake Log Bridge Scan
The log bridge on Falcon Lake is loaded with different species of trout and small bass. During peak periods the log bridge scan appears to include:

• 2 large blips (uni place holders)
• A few same length but thin blips (trophy place holders)
• A bunch of smaller blips (smaller trout and smallmouth bass)

Anyone who has ever participated in Trout Hunter competitions on FP or TF, already fished-up small bass, and a variety of trout there. Therefore, the unidentified blips should be easy to deduce. If you are targeting Trout Hunter 1 kg/2.204 lbs trout, you aim for the smaller blips that are closer to the wall about 85-90 ft away. At about 120-130 ft away is 1 Rainbow Uni and 1 Oregon Redband uni. Let your lure drop close to the top for 1 uni, and close to the bottom for the other uni before reeling in with a twitch motion. If your aim and depth are accurate, you will hook a uni immediately upon pulling the rod up. If you are slightly off, the targeted uni will follow your lure and snatch it in the upper half of the water line. If you are off peak period, the uni placeholders become trophy place holders.

Russia Wels Catfish Scan
I put this scan in the lesson to demonstrate how to use deck sonar and rod sensor to plan ahead when using groundbait and colorful hookbait. If you are heavy into carping, this type of info is extremely helpful in deciding leader length, floater or sinker hookbait, even intensity of aroma to some extent.

Inflatable Motor Boat Alaska Scan
Motor boats are available on both Fishing Planet and The Fisherman. Motor boats differ on The Fisherman with it's ability to hold 2 rods on the tail end. I'm using the sonar to see the fish depth level of my favorite fishing spot in Alaska. The sonar scanner helps me plan which rods to use. I use a match rod set at 20cm to target the pike at the top and a bottom rod to target the salmon at the bottom. I try to use a spinning rod too, but knowing where everything is, I'm too busy reeling-in the match and bottom rod and resetting them into place before I am able to do some spin casting.

Questions?
Please feel free to ask me Sonar Telemetry fishing questions here. If you have a screenshot of a scan that you are finding difficult to deduce, post them here. I do have difficulty reading the budget sonar on the aluminum motor boats because they lack enough detail.

Edited June 28, 2021 by Musette
formatting

[Musette]

@PH_Carpman99 caught my faux pas which I can't edit or repost at the moment. I Inadvertently wrote Alaska instead of of Alberta. Dyslexic me got my words that begin and end with A mixed. My apologies for putting Alberta in Alaska. No continental, tectonic shift occurred, just dyslexic juxtaposition.

Again, please note that the last scan was meant for Alberta, White Moose Lake. Not Alaska.

Thank you Carpman

[Musette]

Update of the previous Telemetry image since I can't edit my original post directly:

[xSKULLHUNTERxxx]

Interesting info thanks

[StephenDickens]

Yep, thx for sharing with us.

Edited August 5, 2021 by StephenDickens

[KhaTRion]

Your information is very good, but what prevails is the hour chart. Peak hours are the same as fish on the radar. And for the rest it's enough to have the marker buoys. It would be great to rely on radar and skill, but that's not how the game works. Just look at the time of day or night and throw it on the buoy and you've got a unic fish.

[SoliDoeGloria]

@Musette, this is awesome, thank you.  One thing I cannot seem to wrap my head around is which way the sonar is going.  The screen moves from right to left but is right the right side of the boat or the front of the boat?