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I was fishing Lake Michigan over the long week-end, and had time to ponder some about the SI units, as I was looking at my Lowrance.
How deep will the SI work? It’s not a big deal to run out to 300-500 feet and fish on Lake Michigan or Superior. Granted one doesn’t fish over 300′ down much, but it would still be interesting to see bottom in 300-500 feet.
Does the image allow you to tell the depth of fish which are off to the side? That would be indispensible for king and bow fishing? What about how far out from the boat?
Thnaks guys.
I’ll get over there in a few weeks and post some screenshots… Until then, here is my response from what I understand / from what I have found from me research…
I think you will probably get about a 100′ fow max from the SI (as far as seeing decent bottom image)… After that you will are really losing detail… Your screen will have to be set very wide to hit the bottom at such a range (which will decrease detail due to limited number of pixels), and I imagine the sensitivity would have to be cranked to max as well.
Even if you aren’t seeing bottom on the SI (if you over VERY deep water), you should still be able to mark fish beneath the boat or off to the side. You might not be able to tell exactly how far down they are, but you WILL be able to tell exaclty how far to the side they are…. Example… Screen set to show 200′ to each side…. Fish is marked halfway between the screen edge and boat path… Fish is 100′ to the side. If you have bottom showing up and a fish mark, you should be able to get shadows which might indicate how far up they are suspended.
BUT….
And this would be huge…. You mark a pod of kings, alewives, rainbows, whatever way off to the side. Simply move your cursor over to the mark on the screen, hit “mark”, create a waypoint, and circle back to the fish/waypoint!!! Easy peasy, you just found and exactly marked the position of fish up to ~300 feet to each side of the boat potentially. Without SI, you might troll right by, never knowing they are there… Cool!
I think it will be an excellent tool for location pods of alewives, and hopefully pods of kings and maybe bows up top. Plus, you still have your downlooking sonar, too. Same deal as the old locator….
I’ll post pics ASAP when I get out there at the end of the month. We generally fish waters from 50-120 feet deep, so hopefully I will be able to get some decent shots with bottom showing up well.
Just as Jason’s last article shows us, SI is a great structure/search tool. A lot of times on the great lakes we might not be fishing pinpoint structure, but that doesn’t mean it can’t help us find other “structure” like 1/4 mile long pods of alewives…. 
I’m hoping it works very well… Like I said, I’ll post some pics for you when I get back.
Whitt
