What do you see?

[Auston22688]

I need your guys help. I took the screen shots the other day. Two pics were taken idling by a dock, which I can clearly see the dock posts and their shadows. However, my fishing pro friend says the bright white dots are the actual posts. I don't think it is. The other pic was taken idling by a shallow grass line with a few lily pads. As you can see there are several bright dots off to the side. Are these fish, or what am I looking at? Thanks ahead of time for all your help.photo 1.jpgphoto 2.jpegphoto 3.jpeg

[AustinV]

It's hard to tell with the angle of the photos and not being able to zoom in very clearly. First picture looks like fish on the outside edge of the grassline, but I can't see any shadows very well. Could also be lily pads, we don't really have any around here so I never scanned them before to see what they look like. Second picture is hard to tell what the really bright dots are, again can't tell if there's a shadow close to the ground by it or what. It would help to see the dock on the water. The third picture looks like all posts, maybe staggered for different sized boat slips.

[188Musky]

You both are correct.

The bright white dots are dock posts, as are the dots with the log shadows extending from them.

The dots/dock posts further from the boat don’t show shadows behind them because of the distance, the shallow nature of their location, and the relative hardness of the bottom behind them. Fish generally do not show as bright white dots, especially when seen shallow on the 100’ scale.

The small white dots in the grass line image are likely weed stalks, the stems of the pads, or even echoes from pads themselves, as you’re in very shallow water. Fish are difficult to pick out in images of shallow, weedy areas, as they usually show as shadows and get lost in the clutter of the image.

However, if I saw clustered groups of white dots in a situation like that, I might investigate further to see if they are schools of panfish.