Many say they can tell what species they are looking at. .
I'd say our crappie guide knew pretty well what we (ok I mean HE) were looking at... The scope reads density so a hard scaled carp is brighter than a catfish. Another property of the scope is the beam is somewhat incremental; reading the beam and noting the fish is 36" long this is likely not a bass but a trash fish. Small fish appear small. You could make out a gar by the profile. Behavior observations with time in the saddle will make most a better targeted fisherman.
The channel we were fishing was a known staging area prespawn so identifying the targeted crappie wasn't random by any means.
