5.6 would be a showdown. your questions sounds more like how to find fish, rather than how to use the sonar.
if your targets are pan fish start shallow say 3 to 10 feet. look for areas that are different from others like an indent into shore or standing weeds or cat tail or snake grass. that's where they will bed.
i would go make a lot of holes and see if you can find fish. just make a few at first and then check them. each hole is like a cast in open water. i like to make about a dozen holes at a time and will make a z pastern so i have some at 5 feet and some at 8 feet. if i can't find then in those depths i'll go 4 and 10 feet. if i still don't find fish i'll move along the shore. if you can't find fish any where then grab a seat and fish shallows for pans or go deep and wait for plankton, but i hate doing that and would rather keep scouting. have a good auger system like a hand auger with a nice drill on top makes that all possible and faster.
think of how the fish would live in there. there should be good spots, you just have to find them. pan fish like to be in shallow and move out as the oxygen deletes in the winter, but still come to the shallows to feed. they breed in the shallows and like to stay close to those areas.
otherwise fish that eat plankton are in the deep waiting for them to come so they can eat the fish that's eating them or eat them themselves.
some lakes they just keep moving and so your moving won't really help much. just sit and wait and have enough lines to hold them there while you bring up your catch each time they come around.
crappie like low light or no light in the dark and the come into shallows and swim just under the ice plate and all the way to bottom, but they will also eat in the day time. they fish like gills, but like the deeper water when the sun is up.
perch shut down just before sunset and wait til sun is up high enough to forage. i don't fsih for any thing else.
watch when others are fishing if they are catching, then you know more about the lake. watch foot traffic too. don't be afraid to ask others who are fishing there what they are using and how it's going or even if they care if you fish with them.
