Ang and I are extremely excited about the latest Garmin software update. Carrying on from our last blog about the new Multiple Depth Shading, I want to lay out a quick and specific fishing situation and note just how this new technology can help make trolling even easier.

I’ve grabbed some screenshots from our 7610 of Lake Ontario directly in front of Toronto. This has nothing to do with the location as per fish; it’s just an example of a lake and in this case a deep one.

Let’s say we use our sonar to locate both baitfish and gamefish, like Trout and or Salmon, and they, for the most part, are concentrated in the 80 – 100 foot depth range. How far down they are doesn’t matter in this piece (that’s what your sonar and DownVu will be used for), it’s just a range you can use.

By marking only that 80 – 100-foot range (in this case we used red as it’s easy to see, but there are many other colours to choose), you can now literally troll as much or as little of Lake Ontario as you want and always stay in the fish zone. All you need to do is keep the boat in that colour and your success rate will soar, as compared to random trolling in various depths. You don’t even have to see the contour depth markings on the chart; they have now become something less to have to concentrate on.

In closing, please note I did this all from my desk with our bow mounted unit hooked to a portable 12V battery. If this were a real scenario, it would have to have been done on the water, as you would need to see what depth the fish are at before you can designate a path. That said, a lot of planning can be done before you even hit the water.