I've got a Helix 7 SIGPS and I can't get any of the fish ID symbols to show up.

 

My trolling motor unit is a newer Helix 5 with 2D and Down Imaging and I can see lots of fish symbols but nothing with the transom mount 7.  Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

My recommendation is to leave the fish ID symbols turned off, with a little practice you will be able to more accurately interpret the data than the helix (or any other depth finder) can.

Fish symbols do NOT always mean fish.  In fact most of the time they do not.  All it means is that there is something in the water that reflects the signal, and it could be weeds, could be anything that does not appear to the "brain" to be attached.  Even the end of a twig, with the rest of the tree out of the  cone will appear as a fish symbol.  With the symbols turned off, as mentioned above, you can accurately interpret what is down there.  With practice you will become very adept at telling fish from other stuff.  Bite the bullet and leave them off.

Humminbird FishID symbols mean something---FISH. Most of the time they DO represent fish.

 

The data is filtered to only assign the symbols if the returns meet the criteria for the symbols---air bladder size. You will get some symbols for air bubbles though, but no weeds, twigs, bushes, limbs etc.

Small fish like shad, small crappie, etc will not get a symbol, has to be at least a 1# bass or larger using the Freshwater setting. There is another set for larger saltwater species.

 

It is not a useless feature like with other brands. It is a fishing tool.

 

The three larger bass in this tree were caught by me as well as some smaller ones that did not qualify for the symbols. There are no symbols for the tree itself.

 

 

This school of crappie only had a few that were large enough to qualify for the symbols:

 

When I was testing the Helix 7 CHIRP SI GPS G2, I took this screen shot. Just four in this school qualified for the symbols. Default settings with FishID turned on.

 

23 minutes ago, Wayne P. said:

Humminbird FishID symbols mean something---FISH. Most of the time they DO represent fish.

 

The data is filtered to only assign the symbols if the returns meet the criteria for the symbols---air bladder size. You will get some symbols for air bubbles though, but no weeds, twigs, bushes, limbs etc.

Small fish like shad, small crappie, etc will not get a symbol, has to be at least a 1# bass or larger using the Freshwater setting. There is another set for larger saltwater species.

 

It is not a useless feature like with other brands. It is a fishing tool.

 

The three larger bass in this tree were caught by me as well as some smaller ones that did not qualify for the symbols. There are no symbols for the tree itself.

 

 

This school of crappie only had a few that were large enough to qualify for the symbols:

 

When I was testing the Helix 7 CHIRP SI GPS G2, I took this screen shot. Just four in this school qualified for the symbols. Default settings with FishID turned on.

 

 

Wayne,

 

your posts are why I initially started using the Fish ID.

 

Any idea why I can't see them with my Helix 7?

34 minutes ago, MickD said:

Fish symbols do NOT always mean fish.  In fact most of the time they do not.  All it means is that there is something in the water that reflects the signal, and it could be weeds, could be anything that does not appear to the "brain" to be attached.  Even the end of a twig, with the rest of the tree out of the  cone will appear as a fish symbol.  With the symbols turned off, as mentioned above, you can accurately interpret what is down there.  With practice you will become very adept at telling fish from other stuff.  Bite the bullet and leave them off.

 

There are a lot of somethings in the water that did not get any symbols, those somethings are shad and small crappie. There are no weeds, twigs, or trees in this area.

 

 

 

11 minutes ago, bassh8er said:

 

Wayne,

 

your posts are why I initially started using the Fish ID.

 

Any idea why I can't see them with my Helix 7?

 

12 minutes ago, bassh8er said:

 

Wayne,

 

your posts are why I initially started using the Fish ID.

 

Any idea why I can't see them with my Helix 7?

 

Try a Restore Defaults to get the unit back to the factory settings. Then turn on FishID again.

Choose 83/200 kHz for Sonar so you get both sets of symbols.

I have never needed to do any additional adjustments for that feature, Defaults is all I use.

I currently have 6 Humminbird Side Imaging units, have three of them on my desk now hooked to a power source.

Looks iike a display a friend showed me on his unit.  He was going nuts over all the walleyes down there, couldn't catch any.  When we turned the fish ID off we found there were no walleyes down there.  He's now convinced to keep them off.  There are occasions that the fish symbols are fish, but even then there isn't a heck of a lot of info of value with them.  But everyone to his own liking.  

9 minutes ago, MickD said:

Looks iike a display a friend showed me on his unit.  He was going nuts over all the walleyes down there, couldn't catch any.  When we turned the fish ID off we found there were no walleyes down there.  He's now convinced to keep them off.  There are occasions that the fish symbols are fish, but even then there isn't a heck of a lot of info of value with them.  But everyone to his own liking.  

 

 

The tree with three symbols I posted above is one I check each time on that lake. If I don't see any symbols, I don't stop to fish it. This is the same one a few days earlier with no symbols for any larger fish just some smaller ones shown with Imaging as white dots. I did not stop to fish it that time:

 

 

I sort of see a lot of valuable information using that feature.