Viewing squid on the fish finder

This weekend, I was right next to a pb while jigging up squid in Monterey.  He was marking it on his sonar, depth, relative concentration, etc. and on my sonar (lowrance hook5-2 with tripleshot) didnt pick anything up at all - barely saw the bottom at 120' deep.  It was pretty obvious that I was either not using the right settings even though I changed the settings the whole time trying to see them, or the transducer/ff is not working correctly.  Interestingly, one of the settings was "overlay downscan" which was checked, and when I unchecked it, I no longer had signal.  A restoring of factory defaults and a restart got the sonar only signal back, but still, no squid marks.  Increasing the sensitivity just increased noise. 

My questions: what does squid look like on sonar, and is there a specific type of setting that allows seeing them better than other settings?  I usually see big bait balls just fine, but wondering if I am missing smaller ones too.     

They look like vertical dash lines on my Striker4 fish finder.   I can take a picture when I go squid hunting next time.

Squid show up as different marks at different times on different fishfinders, sure sign is a cormorant or sea lion surfacing with a squid in their mouth also look for Rizzo’s 
Sometimes they don’t show up at all, don’t be afraid to drop blindly
Typical squid marks include loose scattered “fuzz” on the bottom, gentle curving streaks upwards in light blue (light grey for non-color units), and if they’re abundant they ball up but not like a dark thick cloud of fin bait more like a thin broad fog in the top 2/3’s of the water column

I m planning to catch some squids tomorrow.   Will post picture of squids marks on the ff.

Here’s a few photos from last may when the squid was thick. The first photo shows squid suspended and spread out, the second is what it looks like balled up on the bottom. This was peak squid season so these marks are really visible, later in the year as it fades away expect most of it to be on the bottom but in much smaller quantities. The marks on the bottom will be 1/4 the size of what you’re seeing in the second picture. Last year we were catching squid in December but it was all on the bottom like the second picture. I’m running a garmin echomap 9” btw. Also knowing the area helps distinguish potential squid marks from other fish marks. Over sand is where you want to be. The squid can be found from the coast guard beach to about a half mile past lovers point. It also comes in in front of the tides hotel. Depths range from 60-140.

Here’s a school of sardines on bottom for reference.

I had the same issue a while back, and I think the screen goes blank over a certain depth. I was told by Lowrance tech support that I needed to set the depth range that I would be fishing at. I explained that we don’t fish on the west coast at a specific depth the bottom depth is constantly changing. For me the work around was to buy a different FF for ocean use. I still use the Hook in the lakes, and bays.

Awesome info guys.  Thanks.  I def did not see anything like that.  That Garmin looks nice.
Mark, what brand did you switch to if you don't mind me asking?

Personally I get a lot more sensitivity on my Lynx than on my Outback with the same FF (Lowrance Hook 5) but different transducers. I don't know if the difference is the transducer or the mount.
I remember taking notes from someone (Alan Fong?) that the transducer is more important than the FF and the ones that come included are not that good.

Awesome info guys.  Thanks.  I def did not see anything like that.  That Garmin looks nice.
Mark, what brand did you switch to if you don't mind me asking?

For ocean use I switched to the Raymarine Element 9.
 https://www.raymarine.com/en-us/our-products/fishfinders-sonar-modules/element/element-hv?    I wanted the 7 but the 9 was on sale for substantially less than the 7. I was drawn to the Raymarine because of the fast processor speed, and the Hypervision 1.2 megahertz sonar. One item that I didn't think about but turned out to be the best feature is the ability to use the Navionics Platinum plus card. The shaded relief is a real game changer for rock fishing. Customer service is really good with tech support actually answering calls, and being able to resolve issues I was having.

The drawbacks are the large transducer that creates a fair amount of drag. My hook transducer is permanently glued in hull. Another issue is that there are not many of them sold so there isn't much information about them available on Youtube, or any other social media sites.

I think the higher end Garmin, and Lowrance units have comparable features.