My experience is that SI works best when moving in a straight line and using the gas motor in low speed. I can lay down a beam pattern with an almost picture-perfect view of the underwater structure and see if there are fish present. Any kind of turn means re-orienting the sonar beams, which can create problems when using the trolling motor. I'm constantly working my trolling motor from side-to-side, so it would not give me a consistent SI reading on my screen.

SI is great for finding an area where I want to fish and then DI is best for when I am fishing, except in shallow water. If you can do as JOCO states above and network, that would work well. SI helped me catch fish yesterday because the crappie are moving to pre-spawn areas. I found an area that lit up on the SI, but is was the DI that told me what depth I needed to fish.