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Side Imaging in salt water

6K views 13 replies 13 participants last post by  bonkers 
#1 ·
Wondering how well it works in the bays/jetties? Seems it would be great to locate schools of trout. In colder winter temps do fish stack up so bad that you can't see what is fish vs bait? Thanks-Mike
 
#3 ·
I played around with side imaging a little

I have a Hummingbird with side imaging and played around with it when I first got it. I thought the same as you. What I can tell you is that yes it works. I could see pilings and things like that. I got bored with it pretty quickly so maybe I didn't give it a fair chance.
I guess I'm more into looking for bait moving kind of guy.
:texasflag
 
#4 ·
This has been discussed several times on here, but I find SI to be a very useful tool. Does it work in shallow water? Depends on what your application is. I use mine for finding shell pads in Calcasieu and Sabine Lakes which are relatively shallow. I have found many reefs with SI, as well as sweet spots on reefs because I can see humps or guts. I can see schools of bait and fish in deeper water around the rigs that I fish around in the gulf. SI is a very useful tool for me.


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#8 ·
This has been discussed several times on here, but I find SI to be a very useful tool. Does it work in shallow water? Depends on what your application is. I use mine for finding shell pads in Calcasieu and Sabine Lakes which are relatively shallow. I have found many reefs with SI, as well as sweet spots on reefs because I can see humps or guts. I can see schools of bait and fish in deeper water around the rigs that I fish around in the gulf. SI is a very useful tool for me.

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X2 If you can't see the shell 3 feet from your yak in 4 feet of water you will miss it! 3 feet!!!! Think about it. If you saw something on your scanner that is different than everything else you see on a flat with no discerning objects for fish to gather around. That 3 feet will make a difference if you need a spot to catch fish. It has worked for me MANY times.
I have a Heklix5 SI on my Hobie PA 14 and have found guts and drop offs and shell and mud and sometimes a single rock or boulder under water.
The images on the sonar of the bottom changes in color if you play with your images and you can see the differences between rock, shell, sand mud and grass. I have tweaked mine to be able to see what the bottom is made up of. Get to know your sonar and tweak it to salt water or fresh and you WILL see a difference!
 
#9 ·
?...side imaging uses the same transducer as regular sonar. It does have to be mounted on the transom as it takes a slice image perpendicular to the boat and shoot thru doesn't work. I use mine and if you put the time into it you can get some great benefits. Even in skinny water with the right settings I can spot rocks in Baffin, rocks in the land cut, and other structures. You can see fish if you know what you are looking for.
 
#11 ·
Look at the angle of coverage vs the water depth and you can see that it does not shoot out very far in shallow water.

River or icw in 30-60 ft of water will give you better (wider) coverage. I got the side imaging on the Garmin 94 but in 4-6 ft of water I have been disappointed on mainly a flat sandy to muddy bottom.

LA is in South Sabine looking at oyster pads but in the north in clam shell mix I have not been blown away.

Tons of good utubes for this esp for the Humminbird products but they are pretty much the same if you can fig out the difference in the controls to get the same effect for dv and sv.
 
#12 ·
Have it on my Garmin 74SV. In the bays, is useless. Only thing on the whole unit I use in the bay is the map and sometimes the traditional sonar. But I have use the side scan on the lakes, it's amazing all the things you can see/find. But in the bays, pointless.
 
#14 ·
In a Kayak if you have your transducer mounted as removable over the side arm, you can "adjust" the ducer to point wherever you want. In other words you could turn it sideways and see in front rear side images. It is neat if you know how to read it. You can even angle it to see structure from another angle. Like bridge pilings you can angle the beam 45 degrees and you can see the pilings and area between them to see fish holding better. Again you have to play around with it to know how to read it like that but it is helpful at times.
And I am not gentle on storing it after use and putting it back on for each trip. The Humminbird High Definition transducer is tough and much better than the standard transducer that comes with it. You have to contact Humminbird and buy it and send in your un-opened standard one that came with the unit.
 
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