Side scan

[Xxx]

I was wondering those of you that have side scan, how far to the side do they shoot, and second what depth of water do they cove?? Would they show a fish say 50’ over and 15’ down?? Would it show fish in the skinny water near shore?? Looking to get a new finder and they have with 2 functions depth/fish finder or depth sonar, and side scan. I can’t see anywhere where it says X amount of feet to fish and or X of feet below the surface?? Thanks for any help.

[justtracytrolling]

The helix mega imaging unit does 400 feet each way with regular side imaging and  regular down imaging to 400 feet.  The unit does 125 feet each way with mega side imaging and 125 feet down with mega down imaging.  The regular imaging is 455Khz and mega is 1.2Mhz.  We are very happy with our units and they definitely have allowed me to find fish in new places.  I can identify walleye without getting on them and if there are eyes anywhere under my spread I know I went over them with the mega imaging...I don't even use the regular.  The catch to imaging is you need a big screen to see what is there.  I see the individual alewives in the bait balls and can spot a single fish in the bait balls.  I actually found, identified, and counted individual walleye set up on a sand flat last June one morning and because I knew they were walleye I was able to have the patience to work one tiny spot for hours till they turned  on at 11am.  With my 798si I'd have drove right by....

[Xxx]

Thanks Justin, that’s exactly what I was getting at to the T, I know it would be a benifit in the spring when there in the shallows for sure, but I didn’t know it went to those depths, this would be a huge advantage even when going past sunken islands and drop off in the eastern basin, I was looking at a 9” screen what would you suggest the biggest you can afford, but realistically what would be the least size you would go with, I’m not a charter captain so I don’t need the best of the best but I think a 12” screen is the largest they make, but I was thinking to blue tooth it to a iPad?? Would that benefit me or Is what shows on the unit is what shows on the iPad?? Another words if I went with a 9” screen the iPad wouldn’t enlarge the pic either way in length or width?? Thanks for your input and answering my questions on the side imaging. PAP.

[Zinger11]

I have a Garmin that works great. As far as how far it will scan depends on the water depth the deeper the water the farther it will show obviously if you are in 5 feet of water you're not going to be able to scan 100 feet on each side of your boat

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[VooDoo]

I have a garmin 73sv echomap. (7" screen) that will cover out to the side a long way.  It has different settings for how far you want to cover.  you can even vary distances, say 200' on port side and 25' on starboard if your hugging the shore on that side.   However you are limited to what you can interpret by the size of the screen.  The further out the setting, the smaller it is on the screen.  It is hard to tell what you are looking at.  I usually leave mine set on 100' on each side.  Side scan does not use a cone shaped beam like traditional sonar.  It uses a very thin beam that spreads out in a half circle from directly under your boat to the surface on each side.  It will work in very deep water, it works on 2 frequencies, with one better for shallower water and one better for deeper water  but there again anything deeper than around 100' is very hard to interpret.  Hope this helps.

[Xxx]

Yea, I went to cabelas yesterday and the electronics guy was very informative, and I understand how it works, the only thing I was a little disappointed about on the Lowrance products is your downscan only works off the right side of your side scan. So another words your downscan is reading of of your right side of your transducer and that’s why they widened the cone to 35* instead of the others using 20 degree cones. Now if he’s BS then I’m only repeating what he said but with the units on display side by side it’s pretty obvious from the hook series to the HDS units. I really to a liking to the garmin and hummingbird units, as their downscan seem way superior to the Lowrance units as for clarity and being able to distinguish between bait fish weeds and actual sizable fish readings. Lots to think about, but definitely not aggravating myself with my elite hds unit.

[Fishnut]

I have a helix 5 with down scan on my little boat. It works great. I wish I would have gotten a bigger screen.


Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

[VooDoo]

I use mine in conjunction with my Lowrance elite 7.   Makes for a very good combination and they work on different frequencies so they dont interfere with each other

[justtracytrolling]

The depth isnt relative on the helix for how far to the side you can look.  The helix has 5 different frequencies it runs on and the coverage is 180 degrees. 

[Xxx]

The understanding I got was the depth of the water on some units dictated the length of the side beam, so I said well if your running in 10 foot of water and it tapers off into deeper water what happens then, he said the 2 scinny lines in your side scan read the bottom and reach out as far as 100ft so if you were going along a drop off and you were in the scanning into the shallows it would show fish on the incline, but if it were the other way the beam won’t bend down, to my understanding?? It only works deep into shallow which makes sense. The other neat thing was you could overlay the bottom to different colors which my personal preference was brown that best off set the fish which we kept as blue/red and the arches with a white center are fish because that beam travels through there air bladder and senses a void and that’s the air bladder so that’s a fish, not everything in blue/red is a fish, that’s a sure sign of a fish. We talked to this guy for 2hrs and he was just as happy to have someone who was willing to listen, most others he said think they know plus the lake must be infested with fish enough that you should be able to foul hook a fish. But it ain’t that way in the real world.

[justtracytrolling]

The side scan will work shallow to deep also but the fish can't be glued to the bottom.  It also works fine on suspended fish off shore.  Imaging is also great for seeing exactly how the fish are schooled.  I use this to specifically find schools of walleye set up to feed.

Edited March 25, 2018 by justtracytrolling
Accidentally sent my post before it was done