797 owners

I am looking at this unit pretty hard. Been for about 2 months. I have had all kinds of reports on the side imaging. Some Good some bad. So how well can you see brush piles with the side imaging?

The ones giving bad feedback, have never used one! They show things you never thought was under the water. They definitely will improve your fishing. It is an instrument that takes time to get used to and has to be adjusted to fit your needs. I would be without mine!

I don't have one, but want one. I heard you have to be almost at idle speed to get any of their features to work, even the down depth finder part. Is this right?

I love mine, I use it from 2 to 6.5mph

Go to my web site http://www.accuemap.com/ and down on the page is Tips and Tricks on Using. On that page go down to Speed - one or two sides - distance scanned out to the sides There you can check out the different speeds and distances out I scanned a submerged boat. Using the boat you always know what it "should" look like for a comparison.

WarrenMN

PS I should mention too I'm using the Humminbird 997

Mine works great up to speeds around 30-35, though I don`t pay attention to it at high speeds. I look at the GPS charts while running! The SI works best from 1-4 MPH which is about the same as any other LCR for accurate readings. I can longline troll and see a piece of structure on the SI, scroll to it and mark it(without going over top of it) and go back to it or over it. If you use an open mind and learn these units they will greatly increase your fishing productivity. Another thing I found about these units is the ability to spot beds, I found bass and bluegill beds just idling down each side of the creek and then coming back to fish. They can pick up pvc condos too. As far as the down depth finder you can get a transducer switch and run a thru hull transducer for running, though I don`t see a reason for this in my experiences.

I talked to a guy who has one and he can't scan left because his motor is in the way. Looking at my 90 h.p. Suzuki, I think I would have the same problem.

Its not cheap but if you have that problem you can get around it by picking up a second transducer and a Y cable Humminbird sells. The Y cable splits the wiring off to run the left side on the left transducer and the right on the right. The vertical's wires go with one side and temp may also.
In the end you won't know its using two except for the final quality. I didn't wait to see if I would have that problem, I ordered the 2nd transducer right away. You can judge the end results by the screen captures I have posted.
WarrenMN

I am sure they are good units, but for the normal crappie fisherman(not tourny) do they make enough difference in the numbers of fish you catch to justify the price of the unit?

How does waves affect the final picture, Does it have to be glass to get a good pic.

Do you have to run a straight line I want to do a river bed and it has a lots of short turns??

Rowdy

I'd think they'd be the cats meow for finding brush piles or crappie condos. As for waves, when I run over boat wakes, fairly good sized ones, it causes a slight lightning then darkening, not what I expected. Nothing that really mattered. I'll look see if I have a screen capture with that and post it on my site temp for you to see, but later
WarrenMN

PS, quicker than I thought, I put a sample temporarily at the bottom of my main page

http://www.accuemap.com/

Each lite to dark on the right side veiw is a wave ??

Thanks for your info!

Rowdy

Its actually on both sides but just shows up better on the right. I think that was the wake of a big run about. I had really expected the waves to have more affect than that. I suppose on Erie in 4 to 8 footers it might be really noticeable but don't look at me to find out.
WarrenMN

Warren, if you drop the sensitivity it illiminates most of the waves. I like mine as strong as possible though.

I've always left mine on zero for auto sensitivity. The worst case I've seen wasn't even near distracting to worry about. But like I said, I've never run it in big surf like Erie
WarrenMN

Well, I' ve got a 727 purchased 4-6-06 and just bit the dust yesterday..!!!to me, they just shouldn't go bad that freakin' soon!!! it is garaged kept.. it came on yesterday then right back off, so I put other unit in it's place and it worked, so it confirmed to me that the unit is bad!!! now that is 2 birds in less than 3 yrs!!! and of course they are shuit done , due to holidays right, just my luck!! so the last three years, I have bought a total of 3 birds, and not sure if I would buy another... :-( just my 2 cents!!