hard to tell but looks like u have fish symbols on. Turn them off and you will have half a chance.

Still can't get my head around the horrible standard Lowrance colour schemes......

 I have 2 lowrances and hate them now after a few years of seeing some of the other sounders. I think they are good in 20mtrs or less then after that I cant decipher them aswell. Anyway...

I am reading sand bottom with a bait school hanging around, may be worth a troll of lures for predator fish. Anyone feel free to correct me.

 Not on your own trying to work this stuff out, I'm also new to it and have no idea what it showing me... (lowrance elite-5x chirp)

I've googled for youtubes etc but had no luck, is there some place that teaches how to understand this stuff? (like tafe etc)

Maybe some Mandurites can let me be their decky and train me up.

 head into this store and buy the book by John Adams, How To Read Your Echo Sounder. I cannot promote this enough, I personallly have learnt only from reading this particular book cover to cover. It is very beneficial to the novice and "expert".

I have 2 lowrances and thanks to the my wife buying me the book a few years ago I can work out what they are saying.  If you are near Baldivis give me a message 

and I will happily lend you a read.

Settings and bottom lock or zoom will help greatly , I have a hds gen 2 with structure scan and find it great for both structure and fish finding .
Heaps of info on the net ??

Cheers Andy

 Buy the John Addams book and it will teach you heaps. Sesitivity or gain is too high and yeah as above sandy bottom.

 PM sent re book

 Randall is going to give me the book to read and see how I go from there.

my sounder is on auto mode should I change it to manual?

 Set the unit up as advised in the book for beginners, and declutter all the shit off the screen that you dont want, position all the data in a corner, then setup sensitivity and colours that suit and you can see on the screen, tru make these similar to the book, for ease of future reference..

If you know you are sounding in a safe area, change the screen to full sonar, and remove the navigation pane..

Then play around a bit - stop on a sandbank, see what the sounder shows, drift over weed, rocks and a ledge and see what you see... toss a kid over with a snorkel and let them swim under the boat - with engine off of course.., drift over your anchor and rope, and see that... toss a handfull of mulies ove the side and drift over them dropping to the bottom... do the same with your anchor...

It takes time, but playing around and testing your unit is the best way to learn to read your sounder.. I have a Lawrence now - unfortunatley - and it is not the easiest unit to use or read, but it is what it is, so i use it..

From using my Elite 5, my opinion on that shot is that the top broken line drifting down to the right is what happens when i drop my bait down - it looks like the sounder picking up the sinker/bait on the drop....

The bottom looks like sand, the red ball on the left is a school of small baitfish, and the grey broken smear to the right of that looks like one of the baitfish swimming a short way from the group, or just a small straggler fish on the move.. my sounder also does that slow motion type of noise(broken repeat grey targets), when the targets are moving.., like the sinker or straggler fish moving..

Big fish on the Lawrence look like a definite arc on the screen, with a colour fill, like the book will show..

Hope that helps you get on your way..

Of all the boats I have ridden using HDS & including myself, there is only one bloke I know who fine tuned his to read well. I echo Rob's sentiment above

 Hi Mate

i run a HDS8 as gps linked to a HDS10 as my sounder and i think there fine, have caught ourselves many a big dhuy, up to 20kg.

stick with it, just change the pallet setting and a few other things, until your ready to invest much more $ and then i would go Furuno for sure.

i have sent you a pm

cheers ron

You need to configure the transducer in the sonar installation settings so that the unit can fine tune itself.

It is an easy fix ... just press the menu button twice... select sonar settings... select saltwater use / shallow water, then select installation and choose the transducer you have installed... More than likely the HST-WSBL

Then once this is done, the screen will become clear and you can start to play with other settings.... touch the sonar screen, press the menu button and play with some things... like gain,colours, view settings for split zoom, ect.

 This is only my opinion but keep in mind I dive and spend countless hours sounding for new dive /fishing spots.

The general concensus is that the furuno is a better sounder but dont think the lowrance is not any good.Having the scrollback feature in the Lowrance is a huge bonus.

I have got a HDS 10 gen 1 and dont feel the need for anything else.

With regards to your screen shot I am not familiar with the pallete you are using but i would be guessing you are on sand.When we are sounding we take a lot of notice of the thickness of the black [in your case] line on the top of the picture of the bottom.If you were on better bottom I would expect that to be thicker going to really thick on good lumps. We dont take a lot of notice of schools of fish that are above the bottom like shown in your picture. We look for schools connected to the bottom as when we see them diving on good ground they are never sitting up away from the bottom. The fish life above good ground is often a good indication of good ground. Also sometimes the schools that show awesome on the sounder are only the size of whitebait.

If you are sounding for new ground the slower the better,we have small lumps that we dive that dont show up over about 5 0r 6 miles per hour.

Another thing that can help is to zoom in so you are only looking at 5 or 6 metres above the bottom as dhus swim close to the bottom and keep in mind not every fish you see is a dhu.

Always remember that people used to catch fish before sounders were even invented and they are not essential to catching fish and when people say they know exactly what they the sounder is telling them take it with a grain of salt.Especially when they say it is gravel bottom as I have been diving out of Bunbury for about 43 years from the beach to 38m and I am yet to see gravel.

Just keep at it and keep in mind there is a lot of crap  with a few good bits of ground mixed up with it.I sounded for 3 or 4 hours on saturday and only found 1 spot.

 Hey chad.  Book is on its way.  Its an easy read and explained really well with pictures.  Take note of what he says about distinguishing between soft and hard bottoms and the 'tails' and thickness of the bottom echo.

Good luck.

 if only there was a sounder that identified dhuies....

 Get good at reading your sounder and you will be surprised  what you can id . Dhus are really easy to id.  Most fish have a unique look on the screen and how they utilize the water colum. Doesnt take to long before your calling species and even calling when your going to get a bite.

 you keep playing with that sounder and you can read most fish. 

And I always go back to the book as reference, its the little things.

Can someone "Pay it Forward" to me please I'm NOR 

Cheers