Thread: behind the times

I have all those I's. SI, DI and 4I. I don't scout much. I just let the fish come to me. They usually show up at my house sooner or later. Saves gas.

I have my I's mounted on rickies transducer stick. Podunk Inc. I like I's mounted this way vs on the troller motor. Slick as snot. It is an optine few you.

Although I have SI at both the bow and console, I only occasionally use the SI on the bow. Actually, on my home lake, I only occasionally use the SI on the console since I've been fishing it for 13 years and know the lake pretty darn good as to structure. However, SI is priceless when I'm fishing a new lake for the first time or a lake I haven't fished in quite awhile. For the last 10 years, I've recorded every fish I've caught on all the lakes I've fished including Bull Shoals, Norfork, Ouachita, Falcon, Table Rock, Ross Barnett, Toledo Bend, AR River, et al. I've marked waypoints where the fish were caught, the year, month and day, lake level, wind, depth fish were caught, moon phase (%), water temp, which creek, type of structure, description of the lure type and color, presentation, how many fish were caught by specie, weather conditions, etc. I use a MS Excel spreadsheet to manage my fishing data and Navionics Navplanner to view lake maps on my PC and manage my waypoints.

When I get too old to fish I think I'll raffle this database off to the highest bidder

When I do use the SI on the console it is primarily to troll the lake and locate structure that typically holds fish in the current season such as points, ledges, humps and banks. Occasionally, I use it to find fish. When I do this, I'll set the range to around 90 ft and, if I see what I think are fish, I'll lower the range to 50 feet each side and go over the area again. If I see fish, I'll set a waypoint, shut down the big motor, lower the trolling motor, set my bow unit on 83/200 2D combo and fish the waypoint.

The reason I like the 83/200 2D combo is because it covers 3X the area than the 200 by itself. I have my Fish ID turned on with Sensitivity turned up a tad above mid range. Fish located by the 2D sonar in the 200 kHz cone show up Orange on the screen while the fish located in the 83 kHz cone show up Blue on the screen. I love this feature, especially when fishing vertical in deep water during the summer and winter months. On one outing, my partner and I caught over 50 fish in one location in water between 50 ft and 115 ft deep. The best fish were suspended over 50 ft of standing timber in 90 - 115 ft of water. Hold the boat over the Orange fish and drop your spoon down to them. When the bite quit there, move the boat out to where the Blue fish appeared to be and when the fish appeared Orange, stop and spoon them. We caught LMB, SMB, Spots, Walleye, Crappie, White Bass, even a Yellow Perch and a Catfish.

I'm not using any of HB's new technologies such as 360 Imaging, I-Pilot Link or Heading Sensor so I don't need the latest software they offer. This new software has been written to accommodate these new technologies to the detriment of 83 kHz 2D sonar. This is unfortunate but occurs occasionally when programming systems in any environment or platform where you are operating within hdwe limitations and constraints. I'm still using v6.49 which was released in Dec of 2012 and 83 and 83/200 still works like it should.

Many good anglers swear by SI on the bow. I've used it occasionally when the bite quit but I find it difficult unless you use a very short range like 30 feet to each side and you have to keep the boat moving straight or the image gets blurred. On windy days this can be difficut.