What's the point of side scan? Does anyone use it?

Rain City

Crew Member
Ok so I now have a gen 3 Lowrance HDS 12 and have just started looking at manuals and YouTube videos and I thought "why don't I just consult the all powerful SFBC forum?!" Anyone got any pointers for how they set theirs up?
 
Tried using mine but looking at vids online and seems like mostly shallow water ie lakes. I never use mine.
 
The Sturgeon guys are using it to very good effect.
Not sure of the effectiveness out in the deep water.
Pretty sure if it worked out offshore we would have it.
 
only good for 100'
have one on the boat boat but never use it ...
its coming off when i set up the Bertram...
 
Was told by Harbor chandler that it was developed for lakes and fishing in the Mississippi.



Its almost criminal, you can see the whole fish on the sounder and the spot its holding, Drop bait and fish on

They are starting to ban some of these new sonars in the big Bass and Walleye tournaments down south, the accuracy of these in shallow waters is just unreal. You can actually see a fish swim and move and can distinguish between some fish species. But as stated they are not effective in waters over 50- 75'.
 
Awesome for sockeye fishing! So detailed you can count every fish in the school and can target the schools of bigger fish. When you find a school, take your cursor and click on it,go to your chart page and it shows you where they are,turn your boat and go get em :)
I'll try and remember that 4 years from now lol.
 
I got an Elite 9Ti for Xmas. Wife found it on Black Friday. ;) Has side scan. Looking forward to seeing what’s in the kelp beds! But yes, built more for lake use.
 
Last edited:
if you coud have 36 though hull tranducers between two sceans out dated .an able to cyfer you might be able to
 
The more sophisticated side scans do in fact get clear targets down to multiple hundreds of feet depending on beam angle used. I installed the Furuno Dff3D multi-beam transducer last summer and the side scan is very useful for pinpointing bait off drop-offs and seeing the density of bait balls and where they are in relationship to bottom structure and the water column. Furuno uses the 165 Khz frequency which being lower then what is used by Garmin, penetrates deeper in the water... it's been said that you can generate clear side-scan pictures down to 100 fathoms...

I did have a magic moment last summer up in North Coast.... went by a steep cliff, saw no bait with my P66 or my Chirp transducer but the side scan clearly showed the face of the cliff off to starboard and a bait ball stuck to the side in about 30M of water.I punched in the waypoint which gave me a track line back to the ball and on the first pass I got the first "almost Tyee" fish of the trip...here are some screen caps of what you see on a Furuno DFF3D screen

First a bait ball on the multi beam. (The screen on the left is a B175W Chirp, the screen on the right is the DFF3D triple-beam but selected for single beam: please note the different way the bait ball is shown by the two different technologies): the B175W shows a "spiky" bait ball with 25 degree beam; the DFF3D shows a more "globular" ball with 40 degree beam IMG_20181130_123535.jpg

Then the same bait ball on the side scan:

IMG_20181130_124311.jpg

More triple beam image and how it looks in side scan (please pardon the "noise" in the next two screen shots: I had just set it up the system and hadn't yet strung a grounding wire to the bracket of my outboard)

IMG_20180613_064101.jpg

This last pic shows another graphic cross-sectional display of side scan available on the DFF3D: The three-part cross section screen displays the real-time sea column echo in a 50-degree port, 20-degree look-down, 50-degree starboard mode, which adds up to a total of 120 degrees side-to-side coverage. This provides visuals to instantly understand the distribution of the bait in relationship to the hull of your boat and the density of the bait ball as it sits suspended in the water columnIMG_20180526_163648.jpg

The downside of this technology: a HUGE transducer which I hung from a bracket I had welded on my sponson: no way I wanted that sticking through my hull with a faring block, not with the amount of tailoring I do...IMG_20180420_075441.jpg
 
Last edited:
The more sophisticated side scans do in fact get clear targets down to multiple hundreds of feet depending on beam angle used. I installed the Furuno Dff3D multi-beam transducer last summer and the side scan is very useful for pinpointing bait off drop-offs and seeing the density of bait balls and where they are in relationship to bottom structure and the water column. Furuno uses the 165 Khz frequency which being lower then what is used by Garmin, penetrates deeper in the water... it's been said that you can generate clear side-scan pictures down to 100 fathoms...

I did have a magic moment last summer up in North Coast.... went by a steep cliff, saw no bait with my P66 or my Chirp transducer but the side scan clearly showed the face of the cliff off to starboard and a bait ball stuck to the side in about 30M of water.I punched in the waypoint which gave me a track line back to the ball and on the first pass I got the first "almost Tyee" fish of the trip...here are some screen caps of what you see on a Furuno DFF3D screen

First a bait ball on the multi beam. (The screen on the left is a B175W Chirp, the screen on the right is the DFF3D triple-beam but selected for single beam: please note the different way the bait ball is shown by the two different technologies): the B175W shows a "spiky" bait ball with 25 degree beam; the DFF3D shows a more "globular" ball with 40 degree beam View attachment 42539

Then the same bait ball on the side scan:

View attachment 42540

More triple beam image and how it looks in side scan (please pardon the "noise" in the next two screen shots: I had just set it up the system and hadn't yet strung a grounding wire to the bracket of my outboard)

View attachment 42541

This last pic shows another graphic cross-sectional display of side scan available on the DFF3D: The three-part cross section screen displays the real-time sea column echo in a 50-degree port, 20-degree look-down, 50-degree starboard mode, which adds up to a total of 120 degrees side-to-side coverage. This provides visuals to instantly understand the distribution of the bait in relationship to the hull of your boat and the density of the bait ball as it sits suspended in the water columnView attachment 42542

The downside of this technology: a HUGE transducer which I hung from a bracket I had welded on my sponson: no way I wanted that sticking through my hull with a faring block, not with the amount of tailoring I do...View attachment 42543


Were you nervous putting a big brass transducer on an aluminum boat? I can see that you went to lengths to insulate it from the hull. Also that you are running it outside so worst comes to worst, you dont have a 2 inch hole eaten below the waterline. Even stainless with aluminum makes me nervous..
 
I have a fiberglass boat with an Armstrong aluminum bracket, so I'm not worried about sinking my boat with that particular transducer but yes, the brass to aluminum proximity worried me: those white discs are teflon: hopefully that will slow down any galvanic stuff going on by at least separating the bracket flange from the brass tube and brass tighteners.

I do have a big brass through-hull in the boat, however: drilling the 3 3/4" hole to fit the B175W Chirp and worrying about water intrusion kept me up at night but so far so good...

IMG_0556.JPG

With that big brass thru-hull in mind, to mitigate any potential catastrophic water intrusion I installed that big burly Rule Bilge pump behind the more modest sized one that came with the boat....
IMG_0436.JPG
 
Last edited:
Back
Top