Shallow water.. Down scan or sidescan

[PeterKroll]

I have an opportunity coming up to upgrade my sounder. I currently have a Lowrance Elite 5, and I'll probably stay with the brand.

Budget constraints mean that I'm probably going to have to run with a low-end unit, but I'm happy to get what I can. I'm thinking either a DSI or a HDI.

The question is, in very shallow water, usually no more than 10 metes, what will be most useful, sidescan or downscan, in identifying structure and fish? Any opinions would help. My boat will never be going into deep water, so I don't need high powered gear.



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[tunaticer]

Side scan and down scan are two completely different concepts and readings.

If you want to travel through an area exploring, side scan is a huge bonus for finding structure, however it does not show depth or detail well. It can show schools of bait and fish, but depth and distance from the boat will be a judgement of yours to learn.

Downscan imaging shows very good depth and detail of what is under your boat, not out to the side.

Downscan imaging is a LOT cheaper than sidescan imaging, so if budget is of consideration you might be forced into downscan.

Quite a few models now can run several types of imaging either by switching modes or having multiple displayed at once. This again is a cost decision.

[astro66]

my sounder never goes off side scan....usually full screen or half screen with charts or normal sounder...

[patrol50]

peter i often boat in roughly the same area as your self and use a lcx 27 c for chart and gps and a lowrance hds 7 ser 1 as a sounder with both downscan and with an upgraded ser 2 side scan transducer - often put in at vic pt or runaway bay - suggest maybe save up a bit more and get both with the ds and ss as you wont be sorry - or maybe get a unit with ds and one that you can add the ss to at a later date when you have a extra dollar

cheers rob

[burleygu]

a dsi unit is solely a down scan imaging sonar a hdi unit combines down scan imaging sonar with conventional broadband sonar. And then side scan or structure scan is completely different again. I would suggest a lowrance elite 5 hdi if you are on a budget an elite 7 hdi if you have more money then if you want structure scan you will be looking at a hds 5-7 with the additional lss2 unit or a hds7touch then purchasing the side scan transducer

[PeterKroll]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I think I'll check out what I can get that can be expanded later. There's no doubt that these will come down in price quickly.

So what I'm really interested to know as well, having seen lots of videos and company promo films, is what one of these things is like in use by a real fisho. Is it really clear what you can see, or is there interpretation to be done? I've seen some amazing shoots on this forum, but is it useful in shallow water with smaller fish? I haven't found my sounder to be all that helpful, because there are so many signals that could be anything, like jellyfish, floating weed etc. I know it's different with bigger fish in deep water.

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[chocolatemoose]

your up late peter

the DSI models and HDI models from lowrance are fairly blury at the best of the time "owing to single elements and lower power to the HDS LSS units on their bigger brothers". .. so they are..... ok.

the humminbird 98 down and side imaging units are very very clear

and the newer down/side vu options form garmin look prommising.

my 2c. if you want something cheap and does an ok job for down imaging etc. get a elite 5 HDI. they are 650 bucks or so and get the job done. if you want something better. the 598si from humminbird with down and side imaging for about a grand is a solid performer

if you want future upgradeability and a good unit. id look at the garmin echo70s

Moose

[Stressless]

My opinion, save a few more bucks and buy a HDS.

I've had the HDS7 Gen1 for 4 years (old technology I know), and I wouldn't fish without side scan.

I've attached one of numerous screen shots taken at Karumba, they just take a little bit of time to get your head around looking/interpreting images sideways.

Look closely, you'll see three Barra sitting on the snag

[myusernam]

My opinion, save a few more bucks and buy a HDS.

I've had the HDS7 Gen1 for 4 years (old technology I know), and I wouldn't fish without side scan.

I've attached one of numerous screen shots taken at Karumba, they just take a little bit of time to get your head around looking/interpreting images sideways.

Look closely, you'll see three Barra sitting on the snag

nice image, but how did you get the water column smaller? It's 20 feet down and 20 feet wide. Normally the water column width on the screen is set by how far you are looking out wide? I cant work out how you are displaying minimal water column..

[myusernam]

also I am a bit perplexed with my SS in the 800khz. The 800 KHZ is meant to be for shallower water and yet it's beam angle is much narrower than the 455. so if you want to look wide in shallow water 800khz doesn't work, you have to use 455

[PeterKroll]

Last question (maybe). To those of you who have side scan or downscan, do you still use the normal sounder mode, with arches etc, or has side or down scan superseded it completely?

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[Gimme5]

You need to have the regular depth sounder, "Structure Scan" by Lowrance comprises "Sidescan AND Downscan" and is an add-on you can purchase separately. It is not intended to replace the regular depth sounder, hope I'm making sense. I use both but find that I look at the depth sounder 95% of the time. Structure scan is good at finding structure in shallow waters and at slower speeds. I guess it's usefulness depends on what kind of fishing you do. Other than large well defined structures like a wreck, most of the time I don't even know what I'm looking at.

Last question (maybe). To those of you who have side scan or downscan, do you still use the normal sounder mode, with arches etc, or has side or down scan superseded it completely?

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[Nicko_Cairns]

I agree the 598 si would be a great little unit, I did a very quick search and found one for $734.

http://www.ebay.com.au/ctg/Humminbir...ver-/140965610

Personally i I love my sidescan and wouldn't like fishing without it, I mainly use mine around rubble and the reef slow trolling while looking for structure, i don't use downscan much, it is handy when looking at a snag but my sounder is usually on normal sounder and sidescan, apart from covering a lot of ground if you find something off to the side you can just move your cursor over it and mark it which is gold.

Big bits of structure stand out like dogs balls and you'll cover a lot of ground quickly, you could scan your local river in one or two passes depending on the width and find every submerged log (for example).

with the normal sounder settings, watch youtube videos to learn whatever sounder you end up with and see what settings best suit you, lots of noise, minimal noise etc, pretty quickly you'll learn roughly what arches are depending where you are and where the fish are in the water column. Large mouth nannygai (to use a rubble/reef example) are a lot different to small mouth nannygai on a sounder so you can start to interpret schools.


i'd save up for a sidescan if you can, you'll have it for years so it's not that much outlay over the amount of years service you'll get and the amount of time you'll save looking for spots.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

[Stressless]

The depth is set at 20ft, I was in 19.9ft of water, had I have been in 5 ft of water, 15 foot across the bottom would have also shown = 20ft. I wasn't interested in scanning across the bottom, just what was "inside" the snag, make sense?

[Stressless]

Last question (maybe). To those of you who have side scan or downscan, do you still use the normal sounder mode, with arches etc, or has side or down scan superseded it completely?

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I only use side scan, sometimes downscan, and never structure scan overlay or the broadband transducer, on my barra tinnie.

To clarify, I use a 585 and 1kw tran on the reef boat, so I don't know how the HDS performs in deeper water