Had an awesome trip at FPH. Wanted to share some cool screenshots of all the fish. Didn't catch anything monstrous this trip but lots of 3-5 pounders. I was surprised at how hard I had to work to catch them downrigging but once I set shad out I would catch sometimes three at a time.

Nice shots!

Just bought a side scan unit and having a hard time understanding what it is showing me. I have no idea what I'm looking at on your side scan pics. Can you explain a little?

I know how you feel. I was totally lost when I first starting looking at SI but its not too hard once you get some practice i. I probably need to make a short video over it but I'll try to sum it up here shortly. So the boat would be at the top middle of the screen with the history being towards the bottom with the oldest history at the bottom.

On Reading it, the way I explain it to others is its like setting you "x" amount of feet, 80 or 85 feet in these examples, to the left or right of the boat and you standing on the floor of the lake looking back at the boat. What would you see? You would see the floor of the lake and any fish, trees, logs, rocks on the ground which would eventually meet the water column and the boat right? You also will see their "shadows" which has nothing to do with the sun but everything to do with the sonar beam not making contact with the floor of the lake thanks to a solid object blocking the sonar rays in the display......creating a sonar shadow. This gives you an idea how far up in the water column the fish is. In these examples you'll notice the shadow (black marking) is very close to the fish (the white markings), meaning they are basically hugging the floor of the lake.

To practice understanding the SI screenshot, its a good idea to think of the single image as two separate images and basically cut the image in half down the center line (literally or figuratively in your mind). Tilt your computer or your head to where the far left of the SI image is the floor and only look to the center line of the photo. Think of this as the floor of the lake, fish, trees, boulders with the water column being the horizon/sky. Once you have an idea what you are seeing, then look at the second part of the image which would be treating the right side of the image as the floor looking up to the center of the screen shot which would be the water column/boat. Hope that makes a little sense?? Heres a few photos to demonstrate what it would look like if you focused one of the screen shots as two separate views....Let me know if it helps?

Man, FPH is a Hybrid factory. 80 degree water temps in 17 FOW. Wow, great SI screen shots !

I Always enjoy your explanations. Do I understand that on the left or the right screen shot the fish echos over the light part of picture or ground are the same fish that are in the dark part of the picture? As in the light part shows the fish spread out from left to right. The black part shows the same fish stacked up and down in the water column?
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Also is there a way to estimate how far behind the boat is the bottom of the screen shot?

Thanks for the compliment and glad it�s helpful.

So if I understand your questions correctly, I think you may be mistaken. Let me see if I can explain the possible misconception.... The numerous white specks as seen in the �right� part of the screen are all hybrids that are dang near hugging the floor of the lake about 40 plus feet away from my boat on the right side. These are fish if I were only running traditional sonar only I wouldn�t have seen in this passof my boat because they are not directly under the boat...this is the advantage of using SI!. The reason I can tell from SI alone that they are almost bottom hugging is that a little lower in the image which is further away from the boat/transducer, you�ll see a black speck close by which is their sonar shadow. Because their shadows are so close to the white speck I can tell they are almost bottom hugging. If the fish were higher up in the water column their shadow would be further away from the white speck/fish return plus their shadow gets bigger. It�s the same concept if you go into a dark room and put your hand in front of a flash light....the further The distant between your hand and the wall that has the shadow the bigger the shadow is. If you put your hand close to the wall and shined a flash light the hand shadow would be smaller than if your hand was several feet from the wall.

The solid black strip in the top of the right/left images is the water column directly below the boat. This is the fish you would see on traditional sonar. A fish can be there in the black which means they are suspended fish directly below the boat and their sonar shadow most likely end up big and half way across the map. I�ll post an example of that when I get home. Does that make a little more sense?

As far as how far back the SI history goes.....I'm guessing about 100 feet or so. Here is a display of where the fish is located in reality and how to get an idea of this based on SI alone.

you can use the cursor to find out how far away an object is from the boat. move the cursor over the object and you will get a distance readout. You can create waypoints from side imaging screen and navigate to them with si navigation turned on with the hummingbird units

That�s a very good point! That�s how I target and downrigg hybrids : ) I learned that real marker buoys get tangled very easily in downrigging equipment lol

Got it on the shadows determining depth and distance away from boat, thanks. In most of your screen shots on the left there is a white cloud in the water column. Is this stripers directly under boat? On the right screen shot there is a thick white line that runs from top to bottom of display in water column, what is that?
Any way to tell how far behind the boat the graph is showing? I would guess it depends on speed of boat and water depth.
Thanks

So the thick white line running on the right side of the water column is artifact or waves from my motor because my transducer is mounted to the left of the motor and I had the motor all the way down trying to slow my trolling speed. Looking at the white clouds on the left in the water column could be shad or I hit a wave or something....that cloud doesn�t impress me. I bets it�s some waves that I created and went through again as I was searching for fish. If it�s really windy you�ll see the same images all the time in the water column due to waves.You�ll know when it�s a game fish because it a bigger bolder return. I honestly don�t use SI to tell me what�s directly beneath the boat and rely more on 2D/DI to clarify since if it�s in the water column on SI it is within reach of 2D/DI to pick up and better interpret. As far as knowing how far behind the boat....you can scroll your cursor over to it and it will tell you as 44 Diesel said. You can use SI readout lines to help identify how far left of right the fish are from the boat also.

Very nicely explained sir. Thanks!

Great information. Thanks