Side Imaging Sonar

Another Humminbird first, Side Imaging Sonar will literally change the way you look at sonar. It shows you a true, picture-like view of the bottom, structure and fish on one or both sides of your boat, in real-time. And you can quickly change screens to view your traditional 2D sonar, or both at one time, mark the GPS location of structure you see onscreen, and more. You won’t find this technology anywhere but Humminbird.

Benefits

Side Imaging™ provides picture-like images of the bottom, structure and fish, and covers an enormous area at one time – it’s the ultimate structure-finding tool! Plus, patent pending Side Imaging also offers all traditional down-looking sonar capabilities built-in, so you’ll have everything you need in one unit. With Side Imaging, you’ll get:

• A picture-like view of the bottom to both the left and right sides of the boat
• Up to 480 side-to-side bottom coverage at one time.
• Total 180° coverage for spotting bait and game fish in open water.
• Ability to pinpoint the location of fish and structure below, to the left or right of the boat.
• Ability to mark the GPS location of structure to the sides of the boat via and the sonar cursor.
• All DualBeam PLUS sonar capabilities including better definition and wider coverage for traditional down-looking sonar.
• Split screen viewing options to show traditional down-looking and Side Imaging sonar simultaneously.
• Alternative frequency selections to optimize for best image clarity or maximum coverage.
• Choices of transom, trolling motor, and thru-hull mounting transducer options. Side Imaging is not compatible with glue inside the hull applications.

Fishing Applications

• As a pre-fishing tool, Side Imaging lets you cover more area in less time to locate your winning spots before the tournament. Side Imaging lets you cover enormous areas of the bottom with one pass, allowing you to discover bottom structure that would typically take many passes and much more time with traditional sonar to locate.
• The Side Imaging lets you see to both the left and right simultaneously, so when you spot structure you’ll know which side of the boat it’s on. Now you can cast towards the structure, or if it’s further out just use the sonar cursor to mark the structure’s location and motor to it using GPS coordinates.
• Once you’ve spotted bottom structure on Side Imaging, you’ll understand its orientation on the bottom so you can develop the best strategy to fish it. Traditional sonar is only one dimensional, but Side Imaging offers a “top down” topographic style presentation that virtually maps how structure lies on the bottom. For example, use the sonar cursor and Mark capability to save the GPS location of both ends of a fallen log, then just fish between those two marks.
• Side Imaging provides a great picture of bottom hardness – hard bottoms provide a stronger return and typically appear as lighter shades than the surrounding softer bottom. When fishing for those species that hang on hard bottoms or the transition, its easy to maneuver the boat along the boundary by just keeping the bottom edge at a consistent distance on the display.
• Once you’ve spotted promising structure, use the traditional down-looking sonar capabilities to spot the precise depth of suspended bait and game fish around the structure just like your typical fishfinder. SI offers our top-of-the-line downlooking sonar technology – you’ll have incredible sensitivity and detail.
• When trolling open water, you’ll likely see bait fish to the left or right. When you spot baitfish to either side, swing the boat around and troll parallel to your wake to put your bait in the area of the baitfish.

How it Works

Two blade-shaped 80°@-10db 262kHz side-/down-looking beams:

• Each beam is oriented so the shallow edge of the beam starts at the surface and extends to underneath the boat.
• All beams together form 180° of coverage
• Depth capability of up to 150’ for clearest images; distance out to 360’ on each side. Under optimum conditions, both greater depths and distances are possible.
• Alternative 455kHz operation for these beams results in slightly less total coverage of 160°, but even higher definition images.

• Looks for fish, bait and structure below the boat.
• Depth capability up to 1000’. Depth capability depends on product model.

• Wider coverage looks for fish outside the narrow beam, but are still around the boat.
• Depth capability up to 3000’. Depth capability depends on product model and transducer.

*Your actual product depth capability depends on product model capabilities, transducer installation, water type, thermal layers, bottom composition and slope

Interpreting the Side Imaging View

The Side Imaging “picture” is very different than a traditional sonar view, but is easily understood with just a couple of basic tips. First, since Side Imaging looks to the sides, the position of your boat is moved to the top middle of the screen and is represented by a boat icon. Sonar returns coming from the left and right side of boat are drawn on the corresponding side of this icon. The most current sonar information appears at the top of the screen, and the older sonar history scrolls towards the bottom. Second, when the sonar ping is first emitted, it travels through the “water column” that shows up as a dark, symmetrical band down the middle of the screen. This band will show returns from fish, structure and other objects below and slightly to the sides of boat. The left and right edges of the water column vary as the depth changes - much like traditional sonar, but turned 90 degrees. Lastly, once Side Imaging profiles the bottom below the boat, it continues to look further and further to the sides of the boat to define the bottom contour out to 360 feet using a topographic style shaded image. Remember, Side Imaging uses sonar, so strong sonar returns appear bright and weak sonar returns appear dark. To gain the most from this image, just apply these rules of thumb:

• Lighter shades of blue typically represent terrain rising from the bottom. Sometimes, very hard bottoms caused by solid rock surfaces also appear as whiter shades.
• Neutral shades of blue represent flatter terrain.
• Dark shades of blue represent descending terrain.
• Objects standing off the bottom typically appear as a bright spot or clearly defined bright shape with an adjacent dark “sonar shadow”. This shadow is not caused by light, but is actually the lack of sonar return because the object has already reflected the sonar energy. Generally, long shadows indicate the object is tall, and small shadows indicate a short object. Its important to note the shadow will often tell you more about the object than the primary sonar reflection. Objects suspended off the bottom (fish) do not have an adjacent shadow; often you can see a shadow, but at some distance away from the object. The greater this distance, the further the object is off the bottom.