side imageing?

how well does this work in shallow water? eg less then 10 feet? me and my buddy were talking about this the other day and i just dont see how they could work that well in skinny waters. what about picking up fish out to the side are they any good for that? I have a nice lowrance now however it may be in my interest to pick up another unit for back up and the side imageing almost sounds to good to be true, even better then an underwater camera, is this right, or do you need depth to get good returns and images?

At the recent Side Imaging seminar at Skeeter Boat Center, Dave Poort, the HB trainer, showed PLENTY of great images from water as skinny as 2-3 feet.

One showed a huge array of bluegill spawning beds. It was easy to see the beds butting right up against each other, with bright white spots (gills guarding the beds) in the middle of about half of them.

my dad spoke to a guy yesterday that was trolling Mile lacs for muskies they marked a large fish out to the side. they marked it, spun around and made a few casts. a 54inch ski on cast 5. he was in a buddies boat. this guy bought it on the way home. it is used differently then standard units but it is a great tool to add. I bought a 1197 and am hooking it up today cant wait to set it in action on the weekend.

Mike,

We had a a chance to talk to several users at the seminar and several talked about looking under docks etc. in shallow water. It works well but they all say side iamging is not plug-and-play. It takes a lot of time to learn how to get good images and to learn how to interpret them. I have no experiance YET.

John

I’ve had one for a few years now and they work great. A lot of times I almost would rather jusst troll around looking at things instead of fishing…almost…

I have been using the Bird 797 for the last season and it has changed the way I fish. It is one awsome tool. It is a little tough to interpret at first but the key for me was to go to structure that I knew and see how it looked on the screen. As for seeing gill spawing bed, in my opion seems a little far fetched but I am not using the bigger units either. On the lake we have a cabin on, I know where there is a sunken t-section of a roll in dock in about 10 feet of water. I can go over it and actually see the grid of the dock on the screen. Also crusing 3-4 mph 50 feet off of shore, you can pretty much count the dock posts on the docks on the screen as they all show up on the screen. Real neat tool. I am considering selling the 797 and going to the 900 series. Scott

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As for seeing gill spawing bed, in my opion seems a little far fetched but I am not using the bigger units either.

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Seeing is believing…all the guys at the seminar saw the image I’m referring to. And yes, it was from a 997.

I think Hbird knocked it out of the park with this technology. Now if they get compatiblity with the high tech mapping software from Lakemaster, it will be great.

Ut Ohh!! I see a new heated topic coming. Lakemaster Versus Navionics!! I ran both side by side on my boat for a year and found that one was spot on on one lake and the other was spot on on another. I have now gone to using all Navionics as I retired my Lowrance when I put the 797 on the helm but use the lakemaster for ice fishing in my hand held.

That’s an old arguement that I think has seen it’s better days. Both are great products!! I just want the option to use either.

Totally agree with you there. I have lakemaster chips that are of no good to me now after swithching the boat over to bird. Scott

Lowrance will have it’s side imaging out in April or May, it’s supposed to be “video quality”.

It’s interesting to note that Hummingbird lost it 2nd (and final) appeal regarding a patent infringment. Evidently a sister company to Lowrance actualy owns the patent for side imaging and every unit that Hummingbird sells is infringing on that patent. This could all be Lowrance rep BS but it’s what I was told.

http://www.sideimaging.com
Here ya go

Lowrance has been telling everyone they have SI for 2 years now. So now they are either 1. Trying to get everone to by a HDS unit with promises of SI add on AND hurt Hbird’s sales or 2. They finally have it.
If you know anything about patent applications you know it’s a long hard process. There is no “Final” application.
You can apply everytime one bid gets rejected. SI goes back a lot farther than SIMRAD so if anyone’s infringing it would be them. Also, if Hbird has been infringing on their patent why didn’t they attack them 3 years ago.
A rep is going to tell you what you want to hear and what he wants you to thinK. He’s a SALESMAN.
Time will tell…………..

How would this work for looking at a wing dam? Would it show me how tall it is and how much water is flowing over it? I’m always scared of hitting one of those darn things.

It would show you that detail for sure. I have pictures on old locks, old hydro-electric dams, underwater pond dams etc. Wing dams should show well since rock structures really pop with Side Imaging.
Send me an email to [email protected] and I will send you a couple of examples.

This is a great shot of hydrilla on Lake Eufaula in shallow water.

I used my SI a ton on the river last fall during the PWT event. It really helped me figure out what spots to fish on the wingdams. As all of you know, wingdams are not created equal. The SI allowed me to scan the face of a dam, find the irregularities, go back and fish them and then move on. I did not have to spend time fishing the entire wingdam, I could focus on the areas I thought looked better.

SI may not have changed how I fish, but it sure has changed how I look for places to fish. It is simply amazing.

Is it true that you have to move at a purdy good clip for the imageing to work right?

SI works up to 4-5 mph. In my experience, an average trolling speed of 1.5-3 mph works very well.

The key is to match your boat speed to the chart speed. It takes a little playing around to get it just right. At 2-3 mph I run my chart speed about at the mid point.

Chart too fast and the images are elongated, too slow and they get short and fat. I hate it when that happens.

shallow water eyes