Humminbird side scan

Finally got the boat rigged the way I wanted before I put in a Humminbird 997 side scan. Ran it out on the third lake of Forest Lake on the north end. There be some strange things down there.
WarrenMN

Trying to compare to some shots of boats, these holes must be pretty big.
WarrenMN

boat again
WarrenMN

I guess I’m not sure what I’m looking at….Looks like the inside of a pair of thighs…….
Might be easier to look at if we saw the whole screen?

Quote:

---

I guess I’m not sure what I’m looking at….Looks like the inside of a pair of thighs…….
Might be easier to look at if we saw the whole screen?

---

That is the whole screen!

Once you learn to read the side scan it is great! It is a little hard to learn at first though just wait till you see a submerged boat or bridge it is really neat.

Also if anyone is having a hard time reading try changing the background colors on the screen….I prefer the blue.

I’ll make an adjustment I think will help. The middle dark area is the water column, the sonar travel time till it hits bottom. I think its easiest to turn the image of the side you want to look at 90 degrees so the water column is on top. Then its like looking towards the horizon.
I had better ones but I don’t have the chip right here so this will have to do till I run back and get it.
WarrenMN

Here’s one of the first ones turned so you can see it better.
WarrenMN

That’s cool, can you show us some fish?

Unfortunately, unless they’re real big, no. The problem is the scale of stuff. If you figure how big a fish is compared to one of the boats you get an idea how big a fish would have to be. It can pick up schools of fish, but thats dreaming when it comes to walleye’s.
WarrenMN

I’m still trying to decide what this may be. The boat isn’t set up to fish out so I never put trolling motor on it and just can’t go slow enough or have the control to use the camera for some thing specific like this.
Check this out then check the size of the boats for a size comparison. I turned this too and left the marginal data on it. You’ll see this thing is in 16 feet of water and the weeds stop at less than 10ft.
One other thing about this thing, if you look close it seems to coming out of the bottom along an axis.
WarrenMN

Quote:

---

I’ll make an adjustment I think will help. The middle dark area is the water column, the sonar travel time till it hits bottom. I think its easiest to turn the image of the side you want to look at 90 degrees so the water column is on top. Then its like looking towards the horizon.
I had better ones but I don’t have the chip right here so this will have to do till I run back and get it.
WarrenMN

---

That’s better! For the amount of money they get for them ,they should bait your hook too!!!

Not even close Chappy. Now for my mapping I can find any thing and every thing involved with the bottom of a lake. Heck of it is, I think they’re cheaper than the high end units the other companies sell.
WarrenMN

I think thats a torpedo coming towards you from a competitors fishing boat. Keep us posted on how you like it and what all it will do for you. The only experience I have had with a side scanning unit was I once years ago had an Eagle locator that I bought the optional side scanning ducer for and one day will out fishing Lake Pepin I saw a fish over towards shore to the left and figured what the heck. So I casted a crankbait over there not expecting anything to happen and wouldn’t you know it, bang I caught a northern. And like a dummy I didn’t even think to take that unit off my boat when I traded it a few years later. These Hummingbird new units have alot of new techknowledgy going for them. Was looking forward to playing with the setup my son Nate was going to have this year but he changed his mind [work, wife, and daughter changed it for him] and he went with a smaller boat in a tiller version with less expensive locators on it to mainly fish the river tournaments and fun fishing instead. You will now see him on the water alot with his 18 month old daughter as his fishing partner, and his wife Jessie as his tournament partner. Becoming a father and wanting her to grow up loving to fish has changed his values and priorities [and how the paychecks get spent ] too. She sure loves being in the boat and gets excited about fish. He says her favorite bedtime reading books are now Walleye Insider and FLW magazines as she loves to look at the fish and boats. What a way to raise your daughter son. Dad is very proud. Sorry about getting off the subject here but I guess I get alittle excited about fishing and seeing fishing shared with my grandkids. I look forward to hearing how you like it and about your experiences whether good or bad with it. We ALL can learn from it even if we run a different brand or think we will never buy a side scanning unit. Its a new techknowlegdgy that will impact fishing.
Thanks, Bill

Warren was this in a lake or a river. I know that I have seen petty neat things on the bottom but I would have to guess a tree but just remeber the slower you go the bigger the image. I have seen large fish on mine it is also helpfull if you watch it as you are fighting a fish to get an Idea on sizes or drive by a pillar of a bridge. These things can find smaller object than you realize I think.

I was running a bit slower, 2.7 vs 3.1 in the boat images so it shouldn’t be that much larger. That seems to still make is almost the size of the boat/boats.
Looking back I’m wondering if what I thought was the first boat again is actually a second one. I’ll find out tomorrow. I’m going to get right on top and drop a marker then move just up wind so I can use the anchor line like Doc does to position the boat by moving the anchor to different pivot points. The water is so dirty I’ll have to get right on top. Then maybe if its newer I can pull its numbers to find out the story on it but I got the feeling its older.
Couple of things in the image where your looking at the side. It looks like the boat was dragged backwards a cross the bottom from a line that runs out from the bow. The other is I think you can almost see the wood strakes running along the side. If thats true it’s likely too old to do any thing but fish around.
Heck of it is a buddy and I use to ice fish right there every winter and neither of us had a clue.
WarrenMN

Quote:

---

Not even close Chappy. Now for my mapping I can find any thing and every thing involved with the bottom of a lake. Heck of it is, I think they’re cheaper than the high end units the other companies sell.
WarrenMN

---

Don’t get me wrong, THose things can be very helpful. I’m just not so sure $2000 is worth the side scan too.

Chappy, they got a smaller screen 797 with only one card slot that’s a lot cheaper but it does every thing the my 997 does.
I also took the laptop along hooked to the unit to test how well DrDepth did and was very happy with the results.
Oh, I was out on the point that comes out from the north shore of third lake on Forest Lake where I found boat/boats. Tomorrow I’ll be back out there to untangle if there was more than one boat and see if there was a number on it. Then may run to town on first lake and take a look around off the boat landing – park area.
WarrenMN

Do you have any shots of what a fish looks like on one of these units??

Unfortunately the scale of what your reading, unless the fish is really big or in schools, they likely won’t show up. What these machines have over the others is to help you find the structure fish like. I added a shot of a weed bed so you can see the irregular weed line you could way point. This is a patch of weeds that stuck out from the main weed bed. If this was Millie Lac a guy could have fun anchoring off to the side of it and slip bobber it.
Other wise you just have to use it like the other guys vertical units. It does a pretty good job of looking straight down for fish too.
WarrenMN

If you are in shallower water, say 10 feet and have the side scan at about 50 to each side you can see fish. They show up as white dots in the water column. They are pretty easy to see if the water column is wide enough. Lookin at the bottom structure is incredible though! You can also put the screen so it looks like the normal sonar screen and the side scan view if you are searching for fish as well!

Hope this helps a little

Here are two images I captured, one with a school of baitfish:

and another with what I believe are individual fish. Notice the shadows. I was catching pike and bass as I was trolling through the area. Not the only time I’ve seen this BTW.

How do these units work in rough water?

Cool……..Thanks Warren!

Quote:

---

How do these units work in rough water?

---

It’s just like any other sonar, the image will be wavy. Hasn’t been a real issue for me.

Here’s an image with waves, granted, the waves weren’t big but you can see you get some tiger striping in the return and the bottom will look a little wavy like your regular sonar. With big waves it’ll just be more pronouced.

I guess it’ll depend on what you’re trying to accomplish at the time. You’ll still get a general idea of what’s going on, the pic just won’t be perfect.

NSD, thanks for posting those. I hate to tell people they’ll do or see some thing when I haven’t done it myself. I see your running tighter sides than I’d prefer to run, but now I see I’m going to have to check out playing with the narrower sides. I’m setting up for mapping but with an eye towards volunteering for search and rescue. Unfortunately by the time I’d get there it’d be a recovery operation.
As for rough water, I recorded this running through the wakes of one of those big glass run abouts pulling tubers in a circle.
WarrenMN

Here’s the link to the Yahoo users group for Humminbird side scans.

Humminbird users group

excellent place to go to get answers, whether your looking or got one and need some help.

WarrenMn

I change the distance based on depth or what I’m doing that particular day. If I’m in shallow water I’ll bring it in. If you look at your return, at times you’ll see that way out it is shadowed up, if I’m more soncerened with what’s near my boat, I will adjust my side distance to meet the shadow’s edge.

Warren,

I was out with my search and rescue team here in Devils Lake. They were raising a car that fell through the ice as part of a fund rasier. They pointed me in the general direction and I found the car within minutes. It looked just like a car.

They then put a diver on the botom with a marker buoy. I drove by the diver several times and placed an icon where I felt the diver was. When he released the buoy, it was within 10 feet of my waypoint.

I am not sure I would have been sure I saw a body, if I had not known what I was looking for, but it did show up on the side scan.

These units are pretty slick and do all they are advertised to do.