Your side scan process?

When scanning and looking for fish, what is your process getting to them? I imagined I would motor the river scanning for fish and structure on side imaging. Once I see something place a gps mark on it then make my way directly over it or within casting distance and drop an anchor or spot lock with the i pilot, then cast to them or verticle jig? Was wondering if after marking a spot do you use sonar or down imaging to try and find it to drop a bouy?

The other day I was out and recorded my scans, I didn't see fish In side imaging while on the water but was amazed when I got home how many pods of 40-50 fish I saw in humviewer. What I found even more interesting was how tight the schools were and how few fish were just scattered. At least 95 percent of the river was empty and these pods were seperated by 50 to 100 feet at least. Are these schools of fish just wandering? I didn't see any sunken structure other than current blocks caused by a minor point to attract them there. As you can tell I'm really excited about this technology that lets me see so clearly what is under the water. Just need to tune my side imaging to be able to see those fish when on the water. For now I keep going back to straight sonar with RTS because I understand it fairly well. Would like to hear everyone process once on the water in preparation for a big catch.

http://youtu.be/wkr0dANUaBI

Rickie

Thanks Rickie!

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Originally Posted by Zippy

Thanks Rickie!

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I ran across that video the other day and I knew it would come in handy ...

Rickie

Thanks Rickie. Great video

I'd seen that video before .... looks like he has it figured out....:ThumbsUp...I guess his GPS puck is working for him....kinda strange way to mount it.

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Originally Posted by BobB

I'd seen that video before .... looks like he has it figured out....:ThumbsUp...I guess his GPS puck is working for him....kinda strange way to mount it.

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Good eye. I had to take a second look to see what you were talking about. Hope it is not an HS puck!! LOL

OP... If I had to guess without looking at your screen shots I would say you have your sensitivity set way to high whiting everything out. Notice how dark the bottom is on the locator in the video.This makes the fish stand out. Keeping the sensitivity as low as possible and messing with the contrast makes the fish jump out at you.


Tip.. if you know you are on fish, use the SI enhance and make dramatic changes in sensitivity and contrast to bring out the best in the data collected. You can freeze a screen by activating the courser and still use the enhance feature to make adjustments.

Hope this helps.

As Rickie said screen shots would be nice.

Here are a few pictures from Humveiwer. I never saw any of this while on the water.

As you can tell I was wandering aimlessly and not staying in a straight line for much of this.

You have a really good start. I would get into fish like this again and do as i suggested above. pause the screen and adjust sensitivity and contrast until the fish pop off the screen.

Looks to me you are running Sensitivity a little too high but not too bad. Might cut down a little on your range. Looks well over 4 or 5 x the depth you are running.

The shots produced great shadows. The Shadows are almost as important as the fish returns themselves. Gives you an idea where the fish are in the water column without running over them.

Not sure how many color pallets you have tried. Try inverse. Black on white.... can't get more contrast than that.

Thanks for the help! I'm going out tomorrow and will try all the advise.

Definitely try the Inverse ... My favorite pallete ...

Rickie

Got out again today and did a lot of scanning, trying to see fish, mark and fish them. Never saw one fish that I was sure was a fish. Even created a shade so I could see more clearly and not one positive id on a fish or school. I did record several long tracks and am sure once I bring them up on the computer I will see fish. Pretty slow day, only 20, fish boated mostly small and never got over any large schools. Thinking maybe with the water warming we are moving into the pre spawn transition and they are just not where they were only a week ago.

A great learning tool is to view the recording in Humviewer and the unit (using a 120 to 12v inverter) at the same time ...

Different perspectives of the same piece of structure or fish identification can be very enlightening ...

Rickie

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What is that green arrow?

It's an indicator that shows which side of the screen is "active." ..... If you press the menu button once, you will get the quick menu for the side of the screen that is active.....in this case a single menu button push will get you a quick menu for SI settings......If the 2D side was actvie, a single menu press will get you a quick 2D setting menu.

Here is a pic of some fish hanging around some structure.

Bigger the white dot/ snow flake the bigger the fish, when looking at structure for fish.
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Wow nice! I need to see something like that while on the water. I did see this on my downscan the other day. Check out the little goldfish cracker crappie on the right side!
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Originally Posted by Zippy

Check out the little goldfish cracker crappie on the right side!

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"Goldfish cracker" crappie ...

That's a good one zippy ...!! :HandsClapping

Rickie

So Rickie why couldnt Zippy see them fish on the water but did see on Humviewer

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"Goldfish cracker" crappie ...

That's a good one zippy ...!! :HandsClapping

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lol, glad you like that Rickie. You do see it don't you? I ask because I excitedly showed it to my wife and she said she couldn't tell what I was talking about. I did see the cracker on the screen on the 899 just not the fish in those earlier humviewer shots. That was on a Helix, maybe I would have seen them on the 899.

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Originally Posted by wilbur

So Rickie why couldnt Zippy see them fish on the water but did see on Humviewer

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Humviewer processes the raw data and then displays that data on a high resolution computer screen ..

Rickie

Humviewer also allows time to study the images without the distractions of fishing, baiting, driving, etc ...

Rickie

Ok went out today to work on understanding everything. Last night I lowered my transducer a lot, probably a bit too much. It did however make a huge difference in the quality of the images while on the water. I saw tons of fish and even saw them, took a good guess where they were from the range lines, cast out and yes actually caught them! Saw a nice fish on side imaging cast to the spot and didn't turn the reel once and the fish was on. So that was really cool to finally get it together. I scanned a shoreline saw a pile of brush and wood, moved over to down imaging, got right on top of it and slayed the crappie straight down over 15 feet of water. So here is my question. Why are the images so clear on the 899 screen while in use but milky, stretched and blurred while reviewing on humviewer? I can see the fish on humviewer and the corresponding shadows but the images are not clear at all. Is there anything I can do or am doing wrong to improve this. I was sure I was gonna have some good recordings but they were more of the same milky blurry returns. is this a frequency thing? Anyhow first images are screen shots from the unit, the last 2 are snapshots from humviewer.

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The 899 shots are looking pretty good ..... you must have the SI enhance turned on because the fish are really showing up good ....and you have a little of the grainy image that goes along with it.

Not sure why the Humviewer image look so bad.....It might be good to record and show the same image with Humviewer and the unit for a better comparison.

The Humviewer playback of my 1197 and 98 images look as good or better than on the unit.

Thanks for the reply BobB. Every once in a while the image gets very clear on humviewer. Not sure what causes this but it will be all blurry and stretched then get very sharp for a little bit. Maybe at those moments I'm doing it exactly right and it briefly all comes together. The weird thing is on the unit at those moments, before and after is very clear and easy to read. Does boat speed, chart speed etc have any impact on the recording or is it all raw data and will be the same despite these variables?

Boat speed could definitely affect the recording ..... But no more on the unit than with Humviewer.....I don't think the scroll speed on the unit would make a difference, but not sure......The range setting on the unit will make a difference in the SI recording.