Humminbird SI

[geo17]

i recently installed a SI unit and i have a question. i am pretty confident on the install and location of the transducer, but i the imaging i am seeing on my screen look nothing like the pictures on the humminbird site. now i know they enhance them to get us to buy the product but do i need to do something to the settings or is it just because i am not going over any structure that would look appealing on my screen. i think i can make out milfoil and other weeds and a few rocks here and there but nothing significant. i also went by some docks to see what that looked like and i can see the black lines of the pilings. any help or was i just expecting too much from the commercials.

[muskielaw]

I recently installed an SI as well and have been on the water about 4 times so am no expert by any means but I can tell you that if the structure is there it looks just like as advertised. Problem is most of the lake does not have anything interesting to look at so don't expect to see cool stuff all the time. I was on some lakes this weekend with a lot of fallen trees and the SI picked them up and made some amazing pictures. If you are seeing doc pilings and such you are getting what you are suppose to you just have not come across anything that interesting. Don't expect to see any sunken ships anytime soon. It will take some time to adjust the setting right to get a crisp picture. You can check out a few other sites that have real users posting pictures and some of them are amazing. Google unofficial humminbird forum and you will get a good one or there is a yahoo SI form as well. Good Luck

[Deitz Dittrich]

well, for one, we dont have a ton of trees and bridges under water like on their web page.. But with my SI, if I go over a small rock pile, I can count the rocks on the screen.. its that good.

[Shack]

All I can say is read the owners manual (I know it is as thick as a bible), do the research and ask questions.

Do not do your self and the unit a disservice by just plugging it in and turning it on. I found with my unit a couple trips to the local lake with no poles or bait and just the boat and SI where invaluable at first. Just a test, learn and tune run . NO FISHING!

It sounds like some adjustments might be needed.

One tip I can give you is to keep the column (cone) tight no more then 40-50' per side at first. This gives you a better handle on where the structure is at as far as where from the boat.

[eyebjim]

good point shack. I found that setting the coverage to 100 feet out works best about 90% of the time. If you leave it at the factory setting you will be disappointed. Also as stated a lot of lakes don't have much cool things to look at. The best things in these lakes to look at is the fish and baitfish. It takes a while to get used to it enough to tell the difference from fish and structure and in some cases you will not be able to but you will find the more you use it and get used to it the more you will get from it and like it.

[PerchJerker]

All I can say is read the owners manual (I know it is as thick as a bible), do the research and ask questions.

Do not do your self and the unit a disservice by just plugging it in and turning it on. I found with my unit a couple trips to the local lake with no poles or bait and just the boat and SI where invaluable at first. Just a test, learn and tune run . NO FISHING!

That's excellent advice for any electronics. You need to spend some time learning the unit and learning what it's showing you to make sure you get the most out of it. I put a new unit on my boat this year and last night I quit fishing for about 30 minutes to play around with it some more --- it's the 4th or 5th time I've done that since I put it on my boat a month ago. I think it makes a difference!

[Pherris]

There is a really good news group on yahoo for SI. I find it very useful to find transition areas. And as someone mentioned you will see structure if it is there. It is a longggggggggggggggggg learning curve but worht the time. Good Fishing!!

[reddog]

Ive found the learning curve to be longer regarding reading the images than actually using the unit.

I dont believe that they edit the images on their sites, but I do believe that they have the optimum setup and installation and both of those are critical to good images.