In south louisiana all we fish is stained shallow water, usually 3 to 6 foot deep, give or take a few depends where your at... we troll along the bank punching matted grass, pitching ,flipping or casting at visual cover like cypress knees, trees, lay downs etc..

My question is would side imaging be helpful with these conditions? I know down imaging would not be much unless your trolling close to the bank looking for a drop off. "Like the water is 5 foot deep and drops to 10 foot" some people may call it a ditch.

Right now I have a gen 1 hds 5 in the console I use for gps.. And just a lowrance fish finder at the bow that I use to look at the depth and water temp.

Very new to this any information would be awesome.

Humminbird Side Imaging works great in less than 5' depths. It will work as long as the transducer is not buried in the bottom. 

Lowrance Structure Scan can't do that.

Haven't seen any images with Garmin SideVu or Raymarine SideView to show its shallow water perfromance.

 

Post #88 and #96 are a couple of examples here:

 

http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/127481-screenshots/page-7

 

I have several others with one showing 200' of side to side coverage in less than 5'

This is the 200' of coverage. The light area on the right is aquatic weeds near the shore.

 

Thanks Wayne.. Your the man.. Been reading all of your stuff and learning a lot... Do you have any screen shots of trees near the bank or shore.. Or even of the actual shore maybe 20 or so feet from the boat? I'm willing to invest in a good side imaging unit if it will help me

I cant speak on garmin but i can say first hand that the humminbird units do better than lowrance in shallower water. I wish i had known this beforehand myself. I purchased a gen2 hds7 with lss1 module a few years ago. I have fished several times with a coworker running a humminbird 898 With side imaging and it seems to be much better shallow right now. I may play with the settings on my lowrance though and see if i can impove it. Im pretty sure its se for autorange and may only be looking out a disance equal to depth.

I cant speak on garmin but i can say first hand that the humminbird units do better than lowrance in shallower water. I wish i had known this beforehand myself. I purchased a gen2 hds7 with lss1 module a few years ago. I have fished several times with a coworker running a humminbird 898 With side imaging and it seems to be much better shallow right now. I may play with the settings on my lowrance though and see if i can impove it. Im pretty sure its se for autorange and may only be looking out a disance equal to depth.

Set the unit to use 455 kHz for Scan and you will get the widest coverage the unit is capable of.

Set the unit to use 455 kHz for Scan and you will get the widest coverage the unit is capable of.

Ok will do. Thanx for the tip!!

How about depth of the side view.. Can you tell that? I see you can see 50 foot on each side Or a 100 on each side or what ever but can you see the depth change say from 5 foot from the bank to 10 foot?

Thanks for all the information!

Is that the bank on the left side? The black area?

With the side looking imaging technology, the brighter returns are a rising bottom shape and the darker returns are a falling away bottom shape if there is a somewhat steep dropping bottom.

SOooooo, if you are navigating parallel with the shore, the side towards the shore will be brighter and the other side will be darker.

 

To know the depth below the transducer, look at the depth readout or you can turn on the SI Range Lines.

I don't use the SI Range lines, too much screen clutter for my taste.

Yes shore on left