Hummingbird electronics

[White Wolf]

Does anyone have or know someone with a Helix gen2 with mega side imaging? And have anything good or bad to say about it? I am looking at picking one up for a reel good price but, it's still a huge investment for me (half the price of my entire rig). Is it a total life changer or a waste of money like my last fish finder purchase? Any input is appreciated 

[wishinfishin]

I have a helix9 gen2mega.

I think its great. I fish multi species. Took s little bit for me getting adjusted to looking at side and down imaging.

Side imaging and down only work well at slower speeds. In case you didnt know.

Depending on what your using for ,I think it great.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[White Wolf]

20 hours ago, wishinfishin said:

I have a helix9 gen2mega.

I think its great. I fish multi species. Took s little bit for me getting adjusted to looking at side and down imaging.

Side imaging and down only work well at slower speeds. In case you didnt know.

Depending on what your using for ,I think it great.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using Lake Ontario United mobile app
 

Did you get the HD transducer? 

[wishinfishin]

Not sure what you mean hd.

I got the ducer that came in the box and recently added the high speed ducer .



Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[White Wolf]

9 minutes ago, wishinfishin said:

Not sure what you mean hd.

I got the ducer that came in the box and recently added the high speed ducer .



Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using Lake Ontario United mobile 

Im not sure what I mean either. I read somewhere if you send in the one that comes with it unused, and pay like 80 bucks, hummingbird will send the hd transducer for the mega imaging. Otherwise it costs almost 300 for that one. But maybe that was the high speed they were talking about? 

[justtracytrolling]

I liked my gen 2, and I love the gen 3.  If you plan on getting the most out of the si you need at least a 9.  

[White Wolf]

16 hours ago, justtracytrolling said:

I liked my gen 2, and I love the gen 3.  If you plan on getting the most out of the si you need at least a 9.  

What are the differences with gen 3? Is it worth $1000 extra? I can pick up the g2 9 mega si for less than 900. I'm just trying to keep up with the locals that have tons of money to blow. I've watched guys drive by me, stop and then turn back and pick up the fish they obviously marked with SI. Kind of frustrating when your on trip 3 without even seeing a fish

[Chowdaire]

As long as it has Mega imaging you'll be good. I know from the other musky trolling post that you troll weedlines/breaklines for musky. You'll pick those up with Mega imaging. Mega+ is even better but that's the G2 to G3 price jump.

 

I was out in 10-20fow fishing musky and kings last week (different places, of course) and the newbie I had with me was picking out fish on the Mega SI. 

[White Wolf]

On 10/7/2019 at 11:05 AM, Chowdaire said:

As long as it has Mega imaging you'll be good. I know from the other musky trolling post that you troll weedlines/breaklines for musky. You'll pick those up with Mega imaging. Mega+ is even better but that's the G2 to G3 price jump.

 

I was out in 10-20fow fishing musky and kings last week (different places, of course) and the newbie I had with me was picking out fish on the Mega SI. 

Well that is reassuring thanks. I bought it. Now let's see if I can figure out how to use it haha

[wishinfishin]

Good luck with it. You'll be happy you did it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[Chowdaire]

Nice! Good luck.

 

I think identifying bait and structure with it is pretty intuitive but you can shorten the learning curve a lot on ID'ing individual fish by watching a few Youtube videos. There are some great ones on it.

 

Get the hang of how the screen is shown, with the water column split and flattened out to each side until you hit the bottom. There are some good explanations on it using a piece of paper that helped me. And once you get the hang of identifying the bright (fish) returns and their shadows then identifying fish (vs. rock & logs) and how far they are off the bottom becomes fairly easy.

[justtracytrolling]

If you are always fishing water deeper than 50 and less than 100 (Otisco), or want to see further than 100' out then the gen 3 is worth the money.   Screen size is far more important than gen 3 over gen 2!