Hummingbird Side Imaging

Anybody use this yet? Comments? Al Linder was pushing the hell out of it on TV along with other pro’s.

Mike, I have used the 987c last year. You can see everything that is on the bottom of the lake or river. You can see rock piles, weed lines, schools of fish and bait fish, you can see bass in the coontail that are schooled in the fall. In my eyes this is the best unit out there.

Sweet. That’s exactly what Linder said and I didnt figure he would lie but I wanted to hear it from someone here. Holy crap are they expensive.

If you think about it, it will replace your underwater camra, (there’s about 200) and I have seen the units for about $1800, so you are paying $1600 for a sweet unit, if you look at it my way.

My father and I just picked up last years model at Gander mountain for a little over $1300 the only thing missing is GPS but the attachment is about $100 to add it to the unit. I am going out tomorrow to try it out so I’ll let you know how it worked.

Hank Parker dedicated a whole fishing show that showed the Hummingbird Side Finder. From what I could see, this thing was very impressive. In one scene they went under a bridge and the finder showed all the pilings as they went by them at around 50 feet or so away. It also showed submerged logs, brush, rocks, and other underwater structure. It looked to me like you had to get used to the different type of imaging. It was almost like watching a 3D X-ray

So who else is going to be coming out with this type of unit? Very cool looking. Would love to see how this works on wingdams. Im surprised theres not a lot more talk going about this.

If I had to guess, the lack of talk is directly related to the substantial pricetags.

Having said that, I will admit that I’m becoming more and more intrigued by these units. I can easily see applications in open water and contour trolling for summer eyes. I see one in my future, although I may wait a year and see what happens with pricing in 2008.

I see Wade at Jolly ann marine has them on his site. High end unit is about 2 grand. Smaller unit runs about 1 thousand. That small unit isnt much more than some of the regular sonar units out there today.

Wade. Where are you?

Well I got out today and did not get much fishing done

It was really neat seeing the structure or lack of structure on the bottom. I must say it takes some getting used to. The best images that we got were impressive. My only trouble is that there is a lot of interference on the side of the motor. I need to do some adjusting and hope to make it work better while moving faster and not have so much interference from the motor. I am able to tell much more about the bottom but know that with more use I will understand more. It is truly an amazing electronic…..I am going out again tomorrow……..I am going to use sunscreen

Is there a different transducer configuration? Does it mount inthesame place. What unit are you running?

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I see Wade at Jolly ann marine has them on his site. High end unit is about 2 grand. Smaller unit runs about 1 thousand. That small unit isnt much more than some of the regular sonar units out there today.

Wade. Where are you?

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I’m here, Mike, but I haven’t run one myself. Past customers love ’em. The smaller 797C was added to the line up a couple months ago, making SI much more affordable. You can get it with or without Navionics Premium and Gold preloaded too. Nice option!

On a side note, the SI units have been a huge help to search and rescue teams. I often here them praised by the dive teams. They do what they say they do.

Years ago Eagle had a tranducer that you could buy and mount it on your boat that showed sideways out from the boat on your locator. I bought and mounted it. One day I was trolling Lake Pepin for walleyes and looked at the locator and it showed a fish off over to the side so I figured I’d give it a tryout to see if this thing really works or not. So I casted a shadrap over towards shore where it supposedly showed me a fish and BAM. I caught a nice northern. Do these sidefinders really work. Well it proved it to me. These new hummingbird units really look sharp. Too expensive for me but I sure look forward to reading the reports about them from guys who buy them.
Thanks, Bill

These units look soooo sweet, but my only question before I am totally sold on this unit it how difficult is it to determine fish laying on the bottom, or single fish, and how well can you determine bottom content??

They are very cool units, I would like to see one in action, I wonder how they work at higher speed?

Wade do you have a EASY button like the STAPLEs commercial, my hand is twitching for the wallet

I have an easy button. It’s titled “add to cart”. LOL

Seriously Kirt, Just holler if you need something.

One point to keep in mind is that you can switch to normal sonar mode as well. So, if you’re having trouble identifying fish in SI mode, you could simply switch to regular sonar. It does allow you the best of both worlds that way.

Just got mine on the boat and used for the first time this afternoon.Lots to learn yet!

The SI feature is very intrigueing,and I really like the color contrast vs other units I have seen.If you are down this way,feel free to take a look. It is certainly a viable option in todays electronics world.

For the most part I’ve been staying out of this but it’s interesting that companies have been selling side scan kits for Lowrances for a while but you never hear about them.

This is a sample image from Burton Electronics showing concrete walls and docks out up to 200 ft. The draw back has always been running just one side.

Here’s other

SAMPLES

WarrenMN

Update… I have the 997C (w/o Navionics) and the 797C in stock now.