Sidescan while ice fishing?

Im sure someone knows the answer to this but if you take your hull transducer and mount it to a board or some mount to go in an ice hole would you be able to spin the transducer 360° with sidescan on and get basically the same info that a 360 imaging would get? I know its not going to be the exact same but it would be nice to know which way a brush pile was or if you could see a breakline. I have a buddy with a older fishfinder with just sonar that he has a hull transducer mounted up and it works fine for that but im not too sure how sidescan would work not moving in a steady direction

I have a Helix w side scanning and the boat needs to be moving.

I’d be interested in seeing this. Obviously you’d shutdown one side for the scan, and would probably want to do some quick math on how fast to turn pole to simulate boat speed, and the pixelated return will be somewhat stretched out bc of the radius on the return you’re asking for but I bet it’s doable with some interpretation.

Sylvanboat wrote:

I have a Helix w side scanning and the boat needs to be moving.

Lol my Lowrance side scan says optimum speed is 5 mph. Could be tough with ice unless you’re using an Artic ice breaking vessel.

I did this with my Ray Marine Live 3D. It picked up fish and underwater structure. Funny thing is I could calculate the structure distance and direction…and a perm was already right on top of it,lol

A transducer doesn’t know it’s on a boat, pole, or up someone’s a$$. It gives a return, how that return is perceived to most anglers who don’t understand the concept of sonar is best around that 5mph mark. Gives all those real fancy arches and humps and stuff you see in the commercials.

Unfortunately there is alot of information to be seen at zero mph, 1 mph, or in the OPs case here potentially swiveling on a stick.

I highly recommend getting to know your electronics more if you don’t understand this concept.

gimruis wrote:

Lol my Lowrance side scan says optimum speed is 5 mph. Could be tough with ice unless you’re using an Artic ice breaking vessel.

Your side scan still returns an echo even when the boat is not moving. The display just won’t paint the same picture as when the boat is moving. Same as
the difference in how the bottom is displayed, moving versus stationary.

Deuces wrote:

A transducer doesn’t know it’s on a boat, pole, or up someone’s a$$. It gives a return, how that return is perceived to most anglers who don’t understand the concept of sonar is best around that 5mph mark. Gives all those real fancy arches and humps and stuff you see in the commercials.

Unfortunately there is alot of information to be seen at zero mph, 1 mph, or in the OPs case here potentially swiveling on a stick.

I highly recommend getting to know your electronics more if you don’t understand this concept.

Well said.

if you can interpret the image, go for it.

I use si while stationary.
While turning
In reverse
Fast or slow.

And yes, many years ago I used on ice.

You’ll want to do a slow turn and know that while turning the outside beam stretches the image and inside beam condenses the image. You can put it in hole and spin slowly to see structure and or fish. You can see fish swim by while stationary.

Most people struggle interpreting the image under normal operating conditions but those who do grasp interpreting can do so in any way you wish.

No, it would not look like 360 because the software eliminates the stretch and condensing you get with traditional si. Yes you can get the same information, it’ll look different and require better interpretation skills.

Thanks you guys! I was guessing it would work saying i use it for reverse trolling on walleye at slow speeds and i have no problem reading the image i just wanted to make sure i would be able to get an image clear enough that i can make out whats down there. Thanks for the replies im excited to see what i can do with it in some of the had to reach mountain lakes i fish for trout.

Yes you can rotate and get the same effect. I mounted a helix 10 MSI to a cheap closet pole and it’s great for finding fish. I usually just leave it stationary and see fish swim by or rotate to find structure. I leave speed at 5 and it’s great. Here’s a pic of a sturgeon swimming by.

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you can do the same with the standard transducer as well, swing it in the hole, make a “beam bender” http://www.beambender.com/ or similar

If you have some clear water lakes you might be able to correlate what images you get on the sonar to whats physically down there by looking through the hole in 10-15’ of water. Rocks, gravel, weeds, etc and save some work with an underwater camera. Getting your mental model calibrated based on the images presented by the side imaging will be the hardest part but once that is done you should be able to locate structure off in the distance.

Mptco that might be one of the clearest shots ive ever seen! And being 31.9f clearly it wasnt from the summer. Ive had some pretty good shots of tigers on some stocked lakes with it but nothing that clear! And as far as that beam bender goes i cant see it helping mark structure since with a normal ice ducer it starts bottom at the highest hard surface like a boulder and thats where you sometimes get your false bottoms where it marks bottom a foot up from the real bottom. Ive spun my ice ducer in the hole before to find fish suspended but its never really help with bottom layouts.

River sucker hiding in the rocks during high water high flow

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Not far from here lol

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Connor, I use it the exact way you are thinking. I punch a hole and spin it to find breaklines, rockpiles, trees then go drill right on top of it. Then I use it stationary to see if fish are moving around to the side of me and adjust accordingly. Breaks will show up as black spaces so it’s nice to view a 160wide swath of water. Pretty much always have it orientated perpendicular to the structure. This was my test before pulling trigger on mega live or 360. Not the best but u can kind of see my set up. Also a paddlefish which I didn’t know we had in our system. Talking with local biologist I guess there’s a bunch. Now I have a goal for this hard water season.

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Now thats a setup right there lol double humminbirds and again its so amazing what you can see with side imaging! Ill probably just swap back and forth from the hull transducer and ice transducer when im looking for the spot i want and when im setup. Awesome setup id love to get another unit to do that.