Thread: Is Side Imaging Worth The Extra $200

Originally Posted by BAMA S

Yes sir

X2!

Thanks, JL, for those great screenshots and your interpretations. I always find these posts very informative. I have a Humminbird 597 HD DI. Not as sophisticated as ya'lls models, but it can work good at times. My question is, is there a tutorial on how to tune these ffinders so I am getting optimum performance? I spend way too much time looking for the ideal setting to wring out the best of the unit. Perhaps you could share how you might tweak a unit?

ON DI UNITS,IT SHOULD BE FAIRLY EASY TO SET UNIT AND SHOULD NOT HAVE TO CHANGE IT MUCH LIKE U HAVE TO ON SI,WHEN U GO OVER SOMETHING TO GET BEST VIEW ,FREEZE UNIT AND THEN ADJUST TILL U ARE SATISFIED THAT IT IS AS GOOD AS WILL GET,THEN GO OVER IT A FEW TIMES FROM DIFFERENT DIRECTION TO SEE HOW WELL IT IS DOING,ALWAYS ONE DIRECTION WILL LOOK BETTER THAN ANOTHER

Originally Posted by Crewmax42

Thanks, JL, for those great screenshots and your interpretations. I always find these posts very informative. I have a Humminbird 597 HD DI. Not as sophisticated as ya'lls models, but it can work good at times. My question is, is there a tutorial on how to tune these ffinders so I am getting optimum performance? I spend way too much time looking for the ideal setting to wring out the best of the unit. Perhaps you could share how you might tweak a unit?

Crewmax, If you Google Doug Vahrenberg Tips and Tricks -he has lots of you tubes that explain how to set up most all Humminbird units. Also lots of reading over on the bass boat central board.

As LR77 stated, there are some very good videos out there. Charles purchased an instructional video from Dr. Jason Halfen, the Technological Angler. One of those warm days over Christmas I spent over three hours one day playing the DVD on my laptop while sitting in the boat. I would play a section, hit pause, go through that information on the Onix, then hit play again. You have to leave the fishing rods at home and put in the hours necessary to master the electronics.

We have the Humminbird 360 on the boat and I am not happy with the results I am getting. I think part of the reason is my settings are not the best. I literally downloaded the manual from Humminbird and started reading it earlier this week. A 597 can help you locate fish if you master how to get the most you can out of it. Charles and I started fishing a little over a year and a half ago with the new technology. He can affirm that there were a number of days at the beginning that he fished out the back while I sat in the driver's seat with the manual trying to learn all the technology. You can tell from my screenshots that I have fine-tuned the basics, but I still have a long way to go in completely mastering the technology.

ON GETTING SI,I THINK THE BIGGEST DOWNSIDE WITH HUMMINBIRD IS NOT TRUE DI UNLESS U ARE BLESS LIKE JL AND HAVE A ONIX

SI requires many hours of working with settings and a good knowledge of what settings to use under different conditions.

I spotted this school of crappie from 180 feet away and they were just barely visible; I moved in and this is what I found. Caught my limit in less than an hour and was culling fish for 2 more hours.

SI works for you if you put the effort to learn it.

the great thing for me is learning to use my SI means I get to fish!

These examples help a lot, thanks for sharing