Side imaging

Thinking about up grading to a new depth finder with side imaging. I fish exclusively walleye. Is something that is a good thing or a waste and not necessary for walleye fishing? Thanks

The more I use my side imaging the more I like it.
You can spot Rock piles and bait fish off to the side while trolling.

I suppose it’s all relative to what you prefer but now that I’m confident with side imaging, I rarely even use 2d anymore.

I use and am a big fan of the Humminbird Mega imaging because it is very clear.

Night and day. Fished a lake for years w/o any consistent success. Used SI for the first time, come to find that there were rock piles on a shallow, sandy flat that I wasn’t previously aware of. On top of those rocks were a bunch of walleye. Went from getting lucky to catch one to disappointed to catching less than a dozen in a evening. Can promise you that you wont regret it. Lakemaster/navionics chip has made a world of difference as well.

Coming from a walleye guy, you absolutely want SI!!

Remember, it’s one thing to own a unit with SI… AND it another to make the time to learn to use it

It’s definitely worth having. The best part is if you see something worth looking closer at, you can scroll back and put a waypoint on it.

The bigger the screen the better, especially if you’re trying to run side imaging at the same time with something else (like a map). I’d go with a 9″ minimum screen, 10″+ is even better.

Check out this school of bait I went over on Saturday.

It was over a quarter mile long…. hundreds of thousands of fish…..if not millions. It was unreal.

2d just showed a constant blob. The side imaging really put it into perspective and showed how they were relating to the edge of the drop.

(Pool 4 Mississippi)

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Randy Wieland wrote:

#1836243
Remember, it’s one thing to own a unit with SI… AND it another to make the time to learn to use it

I can attest to this… I have it going on three years, and can honestly say it means very little to me. I’ve tried different setting and such… and to this day it is a very rare situation that I appreciate it. I was much happier with my old unit that had real good regular down imaging.

Maybe with a larger screen…. (I have 8″) but sure it as much about a learning curve.

I’m with Chuck on this one. I have a helix 7 and I just haven’t been able get good use out of it.

Having Mega Side Imaging is the key. It is a lot easier to interpret what you are seeing. Depending on conditions you can count the fish in the school. And sometimes you can tell which species of fish by the shadow they cast.

Interesting takes on the side imaging. Some make a case for having it and some don’t.

Now that I’ve had it for a year I couldn’t imagine going out without it. I have a HDS Carbon, and it’s pretty amazing to be able to see all the individual fish on a wing dam or picking out the fish sitting in a log jam even. There is definitely a learning curve, but the info you get seeing how the fish relate to structure and current breaks/seams is priceless once you figure it out. Pair that with making your own maps, and it changes the game out on the constantly changing river! I would agree that getting the largest display you can afford is good advice. I have a 12″, and it makes a huge difference compared to the smaller screens I first saw it on.

hillhiker wrote:

I have a 12″, and it makes a huge difference compared to the smaller screens I first saw it on.

You certainly dont need to spend $2k to see the advantages of SI though. I use a Gen 1 Helix 7 and it has made a huge difference in certain situations, others- not so much. When walleye fishing, I dont pick out individual fish, I’m picking out structure on structure. Makes finding “the spot on the spot” much, much easier. Rock piles, weedlines, and breaks will be much easier to fish. Makes you much more efficient as a fisherman.

Never said you need a 12″, but if you can afford to make the jump from a 7 to a 9 I would suggest doing it. It’s just that much easier to interpret everything on the screen. I got lucky and stumbled into a crazy deal on the HDS otherwise I wouldn’t have a 12 either.

I’ve had times where it’s made all the difference in the world. I placed high in a tournament, because I was fishing a wing dam that I knew had fish on it. After about 40 minutes of not catching fish, I trolled past the face of that dam with my side imaging, saw the fish, dropped a waypoint and went back and casted cranks to that spot. Caught 3 nice fish within 5 minutes.

Sometimes while trolling, I can mark fish off to one side or the other, and have an idea of what line should be going over them. I’ve had times where I’ve said “That middle board should be going over fish right now”, and boom, that board goes back.

I’ve also had times when drifting, and been struggling that I’ve seen fish returns to one side of the other, estimated how far away they were and made another drift and started catching fish.

It doesn’t always work like that, but it does often enough that it’s made a believer out of me.

For those that have it, do you have to change the settings often when on the water or once it’s dialed in will it work in majority of depths, conditions, etc? I dont have much experience with side imaging but it something I would like to learn more about. Any suggestions on speeding up the learning curve other then getting on the water.

weedis wrote:

Any suggestions on speeding up the learning curve other then getting on the water.

I started out setting things using this You Tube. I looked at a few and thought this one was a good starting point.

You can also run the graph in Simulation mode to get the hang of the settings.

weedis wrote:

For those that have it, do you have to change the settings often when on the water or once it’s dialed in will it work in majority of depths, conditions, etc? I dont have much experience with side imaging but it something I would like to learn more about. Any suggestions on speeding up the learning curve other then getting on the water.

I think the best way is to get in a boat with someone who really knows how to use/interpret SI and ask them a bunch of questions.

FishBloodRiverMud has done a couple nice write-ups about fishing the river and he talks about his electronics a lot.

Best thing and hardest to do if you get SI is take all your rods out of the boat and drive around playing with the SI. My first SI was the Hbird 797 that small screen was really tough to use SI once I got an 1198 then things really made a change and now with a Helix 12 it just gets better. For SI buy the biggest screen you can even if it hurts as you will appreciate and use it much easier.

I usually have my SI inhance up on the screen at all times as the bottom changes hard to soft or depth changes I will tweek it some if I do not feel I am getting the returns I should.

Me personally I am not generally looking for structure I am looking for fish and I do not care about a pretty picture so I will run my SI speed faster. This will elongate any fish I happen to run across making them easier to see and pick out. I run the blue screen almost exclusively for this same reason as fish will show up as white marks. Once I find fish then I can slow my chart speed to match boat speed and swing back over the area to see what is actually there as far as why they are there in that spot.

The hardest and trickiest is picking fish off of crock bottom as many of the rocks will give a bright return, If I feel there are fish there then I wall run over that area with my DI.

weedis wrote:

For those that have it, do you have to change the settings often when on the water or once it’s dialed in will it work in majority of depths, conditions, etc? I dont have much experience with side imaging but it something I would like to learn more about. Any suggestions on speeding up the learning curve other then getting on the water.

weedis, depending on conditions, ie. bug hatch, yes adjusting settings helps make a clearer image.

After someone here recommended buying the reference cards from The Technological Angler, I did. They are a helpful place to start and do a good job of having a little explanation what settings to adjust when. I see he has videos and seminars also. https://www.technologicalangler.com/

Like FishBloodRiverMud says go to BBC and start reading, there are many pages. Here is a link to one of them: http://www.bbcboards.net/showthread.php?t=761616

You Tube also has some good videos.

And like phil says getting in the boat with someone that knows them is helpful also. I am sure some guides would do a good job of showing and teaching also.

And like everyone has been saying the bigger the screen the easier to interrupt what you are seeing.

So there is something to a smaller screen maybe making the learning curve harder…. I’ve at times seen trees and rock and stuff – but never where I said, those are fish. Spent a bunch of time off deep weed lines trying to find crappies or anything suspended – without luck. Even if I was catching them.

I’ve tried doing it off just one side to see if I could let that help on the 8″ unit… didn’t matter. I have no doubt 80+% of my problem is not being good at it – and not having time to learn.

What some of you describe as seeing and learning with it would be great to experience.

Tom P. wrote:

The hardest and trickiest is picking fish off of crock bottom as many of the rocks will give a bright return,

Green
Sensitivity all the way down to 1.

Fish will stick out like sore thumbs, but you do give up seeing anything in the water column on si… Which show up on 2d anyway.

Try it

Chuck Melcher wrote:

So there is something to a smaller screen maybe making the learning curve harder…. I’ve at times seen trees and rock and stuff – but never where I said, those are fish. Spent a bunch of time off deep weed lines trying to find crappies or anything suspended – without luck. Even if I was catching them.

I’ve tried doing it off just one side to see if I could let that help on the 8″ unit… didn’t matter. I have no doubt 80+% of my problem is not being good at it – and not having time to learn.

What some of you describe as seeing and learning with it would be great to experience.

Go to BBC.
Spend 20 hours reading interpretation threads.
There’s a lot more to learn than you can pack in to 20hours, but that’ll get you going strong.

I can clearly identify catfish vs walleye and clearly identify suckers from walleye. Beyond knowing it is a fish… There’s much to learn! That is up to you.

weedis wrote:

For those that have it, do you have to change the settings often when on the water or once it’s dialed in will it work in majority of depths, conditions, etc? I

Very rarely!!!
Much like shooting a rifle long range, it usually isn’t the rifle that needs tuning to hit the bullseye.

Being a settings changer can work against you.
By using the same settings most the time the sonar starts to tell you what is different or changed. Is the image cluttered?? Well, your in dirtier water!

Crispness of a fish or brightness can be an indicator of fish species. A sonar DOES NOT bounce the same off a fish with scales compared to a fish with none. Same with a thick or thin species.

If there is one setting I play with frequent it is chart speed.

Ive had SI since 08. I originally purchased it to find structure to fish, but very quickly learned how good it was at finding fish. Granted, the waters I fish on are pretty much non descript on bottom content, so that makes it considerably easier. Aleb. im going to send you a PM . Walleyes to me, return the brightest image of everything that I have seen. I think FishBloods turning the sensitivity down in hard bottoms,rocks makes so much sense, Ive got to try it. My settings pretty much stay static on my Helix 12SI on the bow, and my Solix 12 on the console. If, I make any changes, its typically range. Overall, ive been unimpressed with my “mega” experience between my Solix, and 3 Helix 12s that Ive installed and tested. I just cannot get over the loss of range, which is extremely important to me when searching large flats. My units pretty much stay on 455, unless Im messing around from the console killing time, then I experiment with mega a little, but when Im in fish mode, its 455 khz, and a blue screen for me. Personally, I dont care whats in the water column, as IM usually in shallow water, that is gin clear, and the fish stratify away from the boat anyway. SI tells me which way they went and how to set up on them to head them off..

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Reddog I learned a ton from you in my startup years! BBC & here. Thanks bud!!!! Always informative

Picture is all walleyes on sand.
Average 4#

They do like their space! I never find them crowding each other.

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Hmm, Which way to cast????? I think Ill go to the left..

Thank you FB. I cannot believe how many people have this technology and dont utilize it. I know some people dont readily understand the whole top to bottom scrolling, but man, you cannot dispute the information it gives you, particularly in -20 fow.

This screencapture was from a school of fish between me and the shoreline. I tried widening it out to see how far they actually went towards shore.

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Heres the screencapture from 08 that totally changed everyting for me.

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Inverse color pallete from the Terrova.

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reddog wrote:

Heres the screencapture from 08 that totally changed everyting for me.

On this one…. those would be fish on the left I assume?