Side imaging or Down imaging Help!

[cedarswamp]

Looking for opinions for , Trolling Application; Is Side Imaging or Down Imaging More Beneficial ? I'm Looking at a Humminbird Helix Trying to decide! 

[wishinfishin]

You absolutely do not need side/down imaging trolling lake o.

I have a hummingbird with it and font use those features on the big lake

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[justtracytrolling]

Side imaging is great for trolling under 100 fow.... 

[Roys Boys]

Yupp side imagine works awesome for schooling fish like perch or crappie.. under 60ft.. I bought it and rarely run it.. down imagine great for finding structure for bass fishing.. other then that chirp and traditional sonar are the best for trolling

[jigstick]

For trolling there are much better options than down or side imaging in my opinion.  The key with trolling is seeing what is under / around your boat.  And the key to that is CONE ANGLE.  DI and SI transducers have extremely narrow cone angles...giving you limited coverage area.

 

You are much better off using traditional or mid band chirp transducers with wide cone angles to see what's going on around you in a trolling application.  At least in my opinion.

 

Its like comparing your view through a rifle scope on 3x vs 25x.   Your field of view is much smaller with narrow cone angles.

 

DI, SI, high band chirp transducers typically have cone angles under 20*.  A traditional 50 or 77khz transducer pumping out 1000watts of power will have a cone angle 45*.  Youre gonna see a lot more.

[justtracytrolling]

I wanna see what's under my boards 100' away as well under the boat...both!  Looking for schools of bait, fish on structure, schools of walleye, etc.  Open water deeper than 100 it's useless and you needs to he helix g3 to get below 50'.  Also you need a 10-12" screen to get detail 100-200 feet each side of the boat.  

[jigstick]

Side imaging isn’t showing you what’s out that far. Not even close. Atleast it didn’t for me when I used it with my boards 200ft off each side. In theory it sounds awesome. I fell for it. Tried it. And the performance wasn’t there. And I was stuck with a DI SI transducer that didn’t give me any data that I couldn’t acquire with a regular transducer

[justtracytrolling]

The g2 and g3 does show you...I use it every day!   Takes me a third of the time to find schools of bait that have active fish on them to circle on...the sonar-di-si overlap so you don't miss much...

[jigstick]

It’s showing you stuff. I’m not disputing that. But given the frequency range of SI transducers and the power output of that Humminbird I don’t think it’s giving you the distance you think it does

[Chowdaire]

I can tell you it doesn’t give the distance they advertise. The range on that Mega isn’t much. I run Solix units on my boat and have a G2 Helix on my kayak.

It does show you a lot shallow though. Especially bait and bottom transitions. Under 25 fow I always have SI on. Over 60fow, never. In the mid depths I’ll sometimes run the lower frequency to get more range. All depends on the situation.

But back to the original question. Deep water trolling, standard sonar on low frequency is all you need.


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[justtracytrolling]

Well when you see a school of bait with walleye on it 100+ feet to the side and no rod fires then you turn around and go back thru over there and triple I'd say it works fine... without it id go right by...the structure it picks up is always exactly the distance away it says.  You need a big screen and learn how to read it....

[justtracytrolling]

The range on the mega g3 is 200 each way and works to 100fow.  G2 is 100 each way works to 50 fow.  Ive had em both in a 12" screen and the g 2 works pretty good and is better suited in a shallower water.  The g3 is impressive out to 70' fow after that I don't know.  The imaging makes eliminating water very easy...and if you are in productive water you know it immediately even if you aren't right over it. 

[jigstick]

455mhz side imaging "may" get you to 100ft. far from the 200-250 distance I typically run my big boards.  These combo transducers...ie...the ones that do chirp, DI, and SI don't do anything particular well.  they do all of it mediocre.  I tried one. Found the info less useful than my Airmar P58 traditional transducer which cost 1/3 the price. Im not willing to sacrifice accurate wide angle sonar covering directly under the boat to get mediocre 100ft side imaging/downimaging/traditional sonar.

 

If it works for you that's great.  I didn't increase my productivity and reduced  my regular sonar capabilities.

[justtracytrolling]

My side imaging is 1.050 mhz-1.175 MHz not 455...I had that on my old 798...apples and oranges!  G3 side imaging isn't what you think

[garrymny]

On 7/27/2019 at 10:17 AM, justtracytrolling said:

The g2 and g3 does show you...I use it every day!   Takes me a third of the time to find schools of bait that have active fish on them to circle on...the sonar-di-si overlap so you don't miss much...

Please clarify what make and  model G2, G3? is that allows you to see off to the sides of your boat for locating bait balls, etc. Is this a garmin unit?  Thanks.

[justtracytrolling]

Generation 2 and generation 3 of the humminbird helix with side imaging.