I am so thankful that there are people like you that like helping out others have a more productive fishing experience. The difference is that you have a gift of really explaining it in so it seems easy to do. thanks.
We generally start looking for these schools on the main river channel. You need a good map of the lake that shows where the channel is. That will speed your search up. Then start looking for irregularities in the channel edges. Go to where channel turns or where you see that channel edge come to sharp end like where a creek channel intersects the main river channel. If you don't have defined river channel then you can also look for depth breaks on points, humps, creek bars, etc.
You are essentially looking for where the bottom changes from one depth to a lot deeper in a short amount of space (channel edges, point edges, hump edges, flats edges). Then you look for hard bottoms on those contours. Bass like to congregate on hard bottoms on depth edges to feed.
Short but VERY informative! Leaves you wanting more lol Explained a lot about seeing the difference in bass, inactive and active by the way they look on the screen.
+Wired2Fish yes thanks for the info! I'm on a deep fishing kick right now here on Fort Loudoun Lake! been locating them, just can't seem to get them to bite anything.
Nice information. Anyone who needs extra help with understanding/using Humminbird sonar/side imaging..Doug Vahrenberg is the man. Imonbass is the channel. Hope it helps