Originally posted by ERNEST PATY

I have been getting a lot of questions about settings to get the kind of pictures that I have posted. I record a lot of scans and use "Yellow Fin" to view them on my computer. That way you can pick up a lot of detail that you miss in the lake. The free program is available here:
http://www.xumba.scholleco.com/viewtopic.php?p=865&sid=1aeb27e70fb74f399f8118c6ff0e1de9

The pictures here were made on a 997 set at 60' side scan. No down scan was used.

In my opinion the 798 sized unit is almost to small to be useful. If you do use one the best bet is to set it at 40' and use one side at a time.

I set my unit at 40' or 60' but it's a 1197 with a big screen.

The most useful thing about the unit is for finding brushpiles at first, after you get more experience you can use it to find fish too.


This is a school of Crappie, we were able to limit out here in a couple of hours.

This log had a lot of Crappie on it with sandbass and Hybrids nearby.

School of Crappie over a bucket condo.

Two logs with a school of Largemouth bass on it.

Originally Posted by leaning post

heres a pic of some small crappie and baitfish on a piling. caught sevaral 9 inchers off this school. Had my sensitivity a little too hot,and my contrast too low, so the pic isnt too clear. if u want to zoom on your pics to get greater view, hold the Ctrl button down while turning the mouse wheel, forward/

this thread may be the best SI sales pitch in history, and all by accident! awesome pics, folks. thanks.

makes me jealous as all getout to see these pics.

What do think crappie?

I don't think so, Crappie are bigger and tighter bunched usually, That looks like small perch or fry and debris. layered in the thermocline.

Ok...my turn. Here are some screen shots that I made with my HDS-5 or HDS-8

This is a bamboo pile with a few fish in it.

A submerged bridge with old BPs to the side. You can see the guard rail on the bridge.

Bridge columns with a BP on one.

Bridge Columns with a school of crappie.

If there is an image that should sell you on downscan...this is it. Look at the standard sonar image, do you see the crappie on top of the BP? Then look at the downscan. Yes it's worth every penny!!

More Crappie.

That's enough to make ya drop a marker...

Oh the detail you can see...Look at the sonar. I have wondered for years what that was. Now on downscan I see it is a log jam that someone has dropped two Xmas trees on. The one standing on left and the one that has fallen over in the middle of the pic inside the logs.

Sometimes sonar can fool ya. Look at the sonar...I would have thought..Wow...thats loaded. Now look at the downscan...time to move on to another pile nobody's home.

And here's what it's all about.
Hope you have enjoyed the show...
CrappieKyle
OUT

Great tutorial Kyle for those of us who are learning. Now I see that those are not crappie it the pics I posted. I also see why I didn't catch fish last night. There weren't any crappie on the the BP's I scanned. Thanks for sharing. Still working on a lay down pic like that.

Your welcome. But I'm still learning. Last time out I started compairing sidescan with each of the frequencies and found out that 455mhz is a bit grainy looking but can resolve things about 1/3 farther out to the sides. I was seeing logs and junk on the bottom out to 120 feet in 30' of water whereas 800mhz could only see about 80.
Also I think I took a pic of a log jam with crappie inbetween two parallel laydown logs. That was fun to drop a marker then drop down a jig till it hit the upper log and dance it off till it fell down to the fish then get the bump. And they were all large specimens.
Thanks again for your review.
CK

I found a pic of that log jam. Its not the one I was talking about but I believe it has a couple of fish in it. Just immagine it with lots of dots under the logs.

And here is another one that depicts the difference between the truth and sonar.

I always wondered why I never caught much on all that fine sonar structure.

Absolutely fantastic photos and information. Just upgraded from Lowrance DSI up to HB 898c SI this past week. Was on Bob Sandlin Friday for the first time to 'play with the new toy'. Could not believe the images produced!! Found brush piles that I had passed over using DSI. Haven't spent much time researching the photo download yet, wanted to find the crappie first, and sure did that on Friday.
Thanks to all who post the image photos, keep it up. We all learn from your support. Ken

Nice post Crappie Kyle. Very helpful.

Those are some nice fish!

I just had another week of fun with HDS and thought I would share with you some things that interested me.
I noticed that crappie had a tendancy to hold tight to the brushpiles and spread over the tops. Bream had a slightly different behavior, they would form what I came to call "Bream Columns". Has anyone of you noticed this?


See Above was Bream. Below is Crappie.

These are Gar.

Schools of fish aint always under the bridge...

New brushpiles are brilliant due to all the leaves.
This one is willow.

This one is cedar.

Here is a new BP I found while passing over some old trees.

Sometimes the sonar shadow is the best indicator of a tall object on sidescan.

Logjam on a bridge.


This is a spot where gas has been bubbling up from the bottom of the lake for many years.

One last pic that would not fit in the previous post.
Let your immagination tell you what this is...

Please post your opinion of what that is because I don't know.

I hope you have enjoyed the show
CK out

Comeon boys and girls....what is it??? What does it look like to you??

Hobie cat?