DOWN AND SIDE VIEW ON A NEW DEPTHFINDER

[rayguy]

Side scan and downscan. Just wondering the thoughts out there on these two options. I mostly walleye fish, mostly livebait rigging. Some lead core and crankbait trolling. Guess my question is are they worth it for this type of fishing?

am leaning toward a 958c Hummingbird, thoughts on that also.

[JohnMickish]

Guess my question is are they worth it for this type of fishing?

am leaning toward a 958c Hummingbird, thoughts on that also.

Yes and go bigger. You cannot get the 958 with SI, only DI. To get SI you will need to bump up to the 998 or 1198

I run a 1198 and use the SI/DI function more than you would think. These features really shine for walleye fishing. The DI feature is great for figuring out if that is a rock or fish tight to the bottom. The SI is great at finding places that the fish like to hide. It is worth the money.

The reason I say go bigger is that once you start cutting up the screen, things get small in a hurry. Put the map and SI and DI on there at the same time and it can get hard to read the small images.

You won't be sorry you got it. Before you buy, make sure you check out the prices here http://www.profishingsupply.com/combos/index.htm

Feel free to ask any more questions you may have.

[thatoneguy]

i have an 898 and i love it. if you can afford to go bigger, do it; if not, an 898 has plenty of room even with the screen split.

[UKCM]

Down scan is fantastic and very easy to understand. It is very intuitive once you get used to fish showing up as little dots instead of arcs. What you will see is bait fish are no longer just a ball on your sonar, they are now lots of little dots. There are already new depthfinders coming out with only DI and not traditional sonar. I think you will see that trend continue.

After a little while you will learn on how to see fish in the weeds. They really do show up well once you learn what to look for. I suggest you go to the Dr. Sonar HSOforum. He has a lot of helpful stuff. Granted he uses the Lowrance products but I think you will find the screen implementation is similar between it and Hummingbird.

I struggle more with sidescan. When I know what I am looking for, it is clear as a bell on the screen. For example going underneath a bridge you can clearly see the bridge pilings. I suspect a bigger screen may help. Many others seem to have found it easy, maybe I am just a slow learner.