Topic: Humminbird Screen Shot Interpretation.

[Rotus623]

Hey fellas, I realize there is a spot just for shots, but this area gets a lot more traffic.
I love my unit (898) and am figuring it out more and more. Have had it for a year now. My biggest concern is this. I can find structure and baitfish really well on SI, but the gamefish seem to be harder to locate. The other issue I sometimes have is that I can see fish in the water column really well, but not as well farther out to the side. I leave the 2d on when I side scan just so I don't miss anything. I'd like to figure out how to rely more on the SI and not quite as much on the 2d. Can you guys help me point out stuff that I missed, especially game fish? Thanks fellas, hope you enjoy the shots!!!

1.) This photo has a nice bait ball on the left side. There is another bait ball at 63 ft. on the right. What do you guys think is going on on the right side? There is a long trail. It may be bait on the run?



2.)This looks like a school of bait hanging onto a creek ledge. In the 2d you can see it getting banged on by some predatory fish hanging out in the channel. Can anyone make out any of those larger fish in the SI beams?



3.)A small bait school hanging off a slope. Do you guys think that on the right side is a bunch of rocks, or fish hanging out on the bottom?



4.)Standard rock pile. Do you think that those are fish in the lower right area of the screen? Would someone circle what (if any) game fish in this shot?



5.)This one puzzles me, because there are plenty of game fish in the channel, but I cant make them out in the SI. Any ideas?



6.)Big bait school where the cursor is. Looks to me like two more schools in the bottom left area. Odd thing is, that on the right we have some raising terrain (lighter colored areas) but it looks very similar in contrast to the bait schools.

[rnvinc]

Your home waters have a distinct disadvantage for SI scanning (~40ft)....in that most of the display screen is taken up by the water column...

Then, by the time the SI Range is set out far enough to see much of any "real estate"...the fish echoes become so small they are hard to descern from the bottom detail...

I will try to upload and circle some echoes that I think are fish in some upcoming posts...

The fish echoes are there...they just may be smaller than you think they should be for that SI Range number...

Rickie

[rnvinc]

The small circles I would guess as fish echoes...



Rickie

[rnvinc]

This pic is really difficult because the longer SI Range really shrinks the fish echoes ...



The small circles I would guess as fish echoes ...



Rickie

[rnvinc]

Again the longer SI Range makes this pic difficult also..



I'm not sure if the items circled are stumps, rocks or bottom hugging fish...



Rickie

[rnvinc]

These are what I think are some pretty big fish to have an echo that size at a SI Range of 125' ...



Rickie

[rnvinc]

Rickie

[rnvinc]

Rickie

[rnvinc]

A few things you may experiment with...:

*Find and mark things in the SI image and then re-position the boat to rescan closer to the object at a much shorter SI Range...
*Try the Contour feature in the SI Enhance menu ... (Removes the water column)...
*Try the SI image set to view one side only ...
*Try freezing the scroll with the 4way cursor and then make settings changes...
*Leave the SI Enhance menu overlayed onto the SI image to have instant access to the SI Sensitivity and Contrast setting
*Use as high a SI Sensitivity setting as you can without washing out the image..
*Try a click or two higher Scroll Speed to elongate fish echoes...
*Try Sharpness in SI Enhance menu to make fish echoes stand out from background ...

Do you have any shallower water in your lake...??

Rickie

[Rotus623]

Thanks a lot Rickie! You confirmed a lot of my suspicions. Most of the things that you circled, I was wondering if they were fish. I have a few things that I am going to do to make it easier to read the SI graph. One is adding a 798 next to the 898, so I can keep the 798 on GPS and 2D sonar, and the 898 in the full screen SI view. This lake has plenty of shallow water. In the winter I go downlake and follow most of the fish. In the spring I fish waters from 10' to 35' deep, with most of it in the 10-25' mark.

I have changed the color, adjusted my settings, tightened up the SI bands, but no matter what I do it is still relatively difficult to pick out gamefish. I can do it, but I have to really hone in on the graph to see them. Can be a little tiring. All in all, I guess I will try to run over an area a few times to really hone in on the fish. As I get closer I can tighten up the bands. Seems like a tactic that I have not practiced much of. And you are correct about those images by that rock pile being large fish. My buddy caught a 6-7lb. largemouth by those rocks. A lot of the other fish on different shots are more than likely striped bass (because thats what I was catching around there.)

[castle rock clown]

That will be very close to my setup this year. My 999si is on the bow with a dedicated deployment arm and will almost exclusively be on side imaging. Right next to it I have a 788ci HD with a quadrabeam transducer on the transom. The 788 will be in 2D quadrabeam mode giving right, left, and center 2D images. In 40 feet of water I would be covering an 80 foot swath from side to side in 2D. Some might call it redundant, I call it a crutch.

[Dieago]

That will be very close to my setup this year. My 999si is on the bow with a dedicated deployment arm and will almost exclusively be on side imaging. Right next to it I have a 788ci HD with a quadrabeam transducer on the transom. The 788 will be in 2D quadrabeam mode giving right, left, and center 2D images. In 40 feet of water I would be covering an 80 foot swath from side to side in 2D. Some might call it redundant, I call it a crutch.

Could you maybe post some pictures of your transducer deployment arm but in a new thread as to not hijack this one? I was thinking of doing this on my ipilot as minn kotta didnt make it easy to run a cable.

[Perch Jerker]

Do a search for "TROLLING MOTOR TRANSDUCER MOUNT"  #28 is my solution and it works great.