Topic: 997 CSI finally getting decent down images

[Mark Saikaley]

I'm into my 3rd season with my 97 CSI and up until now had been suffering lunch bag let down with respect to the side Imaging and more so with the down imaging.  Side imaging was better for seeing rocks and bottom but I could not see anything submerged such as trees and branches etc.  I was marking little white specs for fish

Down imagine was pretty much useless to me. I could see much more information on the traditional sonar returns and could clearly see evidence of underwater trees or brush but when looking side by side at the down imagine or switching to the full view down imagine I would see nothing at all but a clear smooth bottome. Sometimes a slight but of something where the tree should be but just a slight scratching signs there was something. So I saw the down imaging as really useless.

However things started getting better for side imagine after the last couple of updates. I more noticed the improvements in the recent update although I didn't see side imaging listed as one of the enhancements. The ability to fine tune the down imaging made a big difference  though.

The "break through occur ed on a lake where I was seeing a lot of underwater trees on the regular sonar and yet nothing or very little by comparison on the down imaging. Then I turned the down imaging sensitivity way up to max 20 and I then started to see "ghost" images appearing showing many tree "stumps" coming up form the bottom. This is in 18 - 24 ft of water. Once I was locked in I lowered the sensitivity to 18 and could still see basically the same degree of detail fiddling with the contrast and sharpness didn't really add significantly more detail, but at least now I am seeing down images that are similar to what have been posted

I'm wondering if this is typical that the sensitivity needs to be up at max  for good down images such as trees etc?  I don't think I captured any screen images but will in the future for posting and am interested to explore other lakes with the higher setting and see what is now visible in particular on deeper lakes since I had to crank up the sensitivity to max for relatively shallow water. At least I am happy to now be seeing what I would have expected on down imaging especially when the regular sonar was showing so much more evidence of structure