The pictures that I have seen change the way you will look at underwater structure. I haven't spent enough time getting familiar with my sidefinder yet but I can already tell the information it provides is going to be very usefull to me.

A scenario that can be done is to look at a winding creek channel coming out of a big flat dumping into a lake. The unit can show the bends/stumps/rockpiles and variations in depth in a picture format. Then you can take your cursor and make a waypoint for any of the possible fish holding structures along that creek. You can even magnify each target and get more detail of whats on the bottom.

Its pretty amazing really. I know that today Navionics and Fishing Hot Spots are the big thing in gps. With the information being provided by these sidefinders I'm sure someone has already realized the possibilities that can be had from taking these underwater "snapshots" and making them available. Rather than having just a gps, the bottom mapped with so many potential fishholding spots is going to inevitably uncover the lake bottoms and make it available to the average fisherman. We won't even need the sidefinders, just a gps depthfinder with large storage. Until then and for competitive fishing its going to soon become those with and those without sidefinding capabilities.

All thats kind of futuristic but its all possible with the current technology. I don't know if its a good thing as it will make offshore "spots" easy to find.

I can't say all that it will do as I have only played with it for a few hours but fish seem to show up as white dots. I haven't used the thing on docks yet but I'm sure it will make brushpiles appear. The unit scans the bottom very well. It shows the backside of what you are scanning as a shadow since it can only scan line of sight. Most people have mounted the transducer on the outside of the back of the boat. I heard that mounting the transducer on the jackplate above the bottom level of the boat will keep the transducer safer and that is what I have done. I have a switchbox and will have a transducer mounted inside the hull for planing speeds. I have an LMS480 on the front of the boat but so far its kind of a hassle manually transferring waypoints so I'm going to get another Hummingbird and network them together. Should make it a whole lot easier.

It sounds like I have made a case that everyones going to drop what we have now or be left behind. Thats simply not the case as the best fishermen are the best because they can simply catch fish better than the rest of us. The sidefinders and bottom information is only going to go so far but the possibilities are there.

What do you think? Is there a market for a "picture" of the lakebottoms?

Allison, I know your out on JP regularly. I'd love to take a test drive on that thing. Way out of my price range for many years, but I'd still love to see it in action and maybe even on a couple of my holes.

If I could afford one, I'd have one...

I have a side view, i wouldnt mind giving anyone a test drive

Hey Chad. Call me. We'll set up a boat trip/ride/fish.
214 629 7124

If anyone has a sidescan image of the red barn hump please e-mail me a copy of the image.

Looking foward to getting one on my new boat.

Great post David.
Mike, next time you come to Fork, we gotta go out, so I can check it out. I might have to go with a 'Bird next time.

i will be out there in november for jc outdoors.

Mike I would like to ck out the sideview.Next time your out at EML give me a call.I can meet you at my dock .

If i cam find a partner i will be out there this sunday for the tournment

Mike I talked to Don yesterday he said he will deside friday if he will hold sunday tourney then.If he does ill need a partner .My partner is going bow hunting .If you want a back seat in my boat give me a call. 817-480-9688 .Or your boat with sideview.

The side imaging is great and I will be upgrading to one very soon. The stuff it can show you is incredible, but it's not going to help you much if you dont know how to find fish without one. Map study is crucial even with the best electronics, as it would take you years of side scanning to scan an entire 25,000 acre lake. You need to be able to pinpoint spots through map study using both paper maps and Navionics electronic maps, then go to these areas and refine them and find the sweet spot on the sweet spot. The side imaging is an amazing tool and has changed fishing forever and it will only get better. The way I see it though, it is going to help the good anglers much more then it will help the average angler.

Navionics makes paper maps as well....AND the NavPlanner lets you look at your mapping program on your home computer when its nasty outside... You can add/edit Routes and waypoints, then save them to the extra SD chip to later transfer into your unit... There are some awesome mapping capabilities out there many people dont utilize....

One thing I have noticed.. is... a LOT of people rely on finding FISH first, then the structure second.... if you are looking for BASS- you need to concentrate on finding the strucutre FIRST, then look for the baitfish... Bass are predators, and ambush thier prey- so a LOT of times they will be IN/NEXT TO the cover/structure and you will NEVER see them.....


A few people have asked me WHY i want to have 80 brushile locations on Ray Hubbard... the simple reason is only 10% or LESS will have quality fish on them.... a great man named Robby Rose "learned me" on this tactic....I wont disclose how many places he has to look at on Cedar Creek.. it would blow your mind...

For what its worth- being able to catch'em Helps 2