We took a bit of a detour on our way home from the crappie shoot yesterday. We’re packing up and heading to a perch slough just off of 94 to see if we can’t get in on a birch bite using the 360. When I get back to the office I’ll share screen captures and maybe even a little video from the 360 from both locations.
This forum needs a “Like” button…
‘Stupid Good’…as in its so good as to render it stupid not to have one?
I’ve got M360 on the boat which could be converted to ice, but trying to figure out how to make a Helix 12 a little more ‘ice friendly’. That thing seems like a beast to lug around. I’m all ears if someone has ideas…
‘Stupid Good’…as in its so good as to render it stupid not to have one?
I’ve got M360 on the boat which could be converted to ice, but trying to figure out how to make a Helix 12 a little more ‘ice friendly’. That thing seems like a beast to lug around. I’m all ears if someone has ideas…
Brian, Steve’s Hole Hop Caddy’s (on facebook or by phone at 763 229-2842) makes custom caddy’s, not sure about the Helix 12, but worth a try if you are going to use it regularly on the ice.
Found ’em! It took about 2 hours of hunting with nothing to show for our efforts before we stumbled on a really nice school of perch. The tight group is located about 10:00 in the attached photo.
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That things a tank congrats more fillets for the table
That’s awesome. I’m still trying to get my set up dialed in, only been out once. Would you be willing to share the settings so when I’m on the ice, I can just fish? A picture of the enhanced setting would be helpful. Thanks!
That’s awesome. I’m still trying to get my set up dialed in, only been out once. Would you be willing to share the settings so when I’m on the ice, I can just fish? A picture of the enhanced setting would be helpful. Thanks!
I just rolled in from ND. I’ll be happy to post pics of my settings tomorrow.
Wow that’s awesome, but I hope all the fishermen who use that will use the restraint that you guys use.
A picture of the enhanced setting would be helpful.
Sorry, I don’t have time to take pictures but here’s the settings info.
Yesterday when we were out chasing perch we wanted to see if we could ID fish bottom-hugging and it did take some experimenting to get the settings dialed in. The day prior when we were fishing suspended crappie… we were running sensitivity at 2 and contrast at 7 with speed set at 4. Those suspended crappie stuck out like sore thumbs.
To spot the perch tight to the bottom I lowered the sensitivity to -7 / -8 and bumped the contrast to 14 and lowered the speed to 3. BINGO! Bottom hugging perch! This might seem counterintuitive but essentially what you want to do is lower the sensitivity to show a faint return of the bottom which makes the fish themselves jump off the screen once you bump up the contrast. When I ran the settings from the day prior the bottom hugging perch got lost in the signal return from the bottom of the lake. Suspended fish are easy but after a little trial and error we were able to get things set up right which made it possible to stay on those bottom-huggers!
In this attachment you can see the school of perch we were chasing about 260 degrees and mid-dial (just south of the 9 O’clock position and left of center).
I’m learning a great deal every time I get the chance to get out on the ice and I’m sure my approach to using this tool will continue to evolve as my experience with it continues to grow. Overall I’m very impressed with how much more efficient and effective it is making me as an angler.
I hope this helps. Report back once you get out on the ice with your 360 to do some fishing. 
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‘Stupid Good’…as in its so good as to render it stupid not to have one?
I need to learn to temper my excitement a bit following a good day on the ice! 
The first couple times I’ve had it on the ice the Mega 360 has proven itself to be an incredibly useful and powerful tool that made me more efficient and definitely helped me catch more fish than I would have caught without it. That said, and the reason I need to temper my enthusiasm a bit, is I’ve really only used it in a couple of scenarios. In those scenarios it worked great but I need to do more testing in more scenarios before I give it a double thumbs up endorsement.
Some of the scenarios I want to test it in are weed walleye where the walleye will be suspended in the weeds as well as lurking along the edges and walleye on sharp breaks with and without rocks / boulders.
I’ll continue to report back as I get more time with the 360 out on the ice. You please do the same if you end up fishing with one.
Thanks James! This gives me a good start and hopefully I can report back with some success stories. I have my settings way too high which drowns everything out. Appreciate all the info!
Thanks James! This gives me a good start and hopefully I can report back with some success stories. I have my settings way too high which drowns everything out. Appreciate all the info!
Based on what I learned yesterday targeting the bottom-hugging perch I wish I could go back and rework my settings used for the suspended crappie. I’m confident I was running too much gain / sensitivity. I had things set up well enough to see what I needed to see and fished based on that info but I’m sure there was room to refine the images.
You’ve inspired me to redneck tech my own “super fish finder”. I’ve got a Ray Marine Axiom with RealVision 3D and I’m building a rotating mast out of pvc and a transport holder on the front of my ATV. I will also power the unit via sae connector off the ATV. I will have RealVision, side scan, down scan, graph and GPS all in one unit. Wish me luck.
James, as a M360 user since this past spring and an AS360 user for years, I need to temper my excitement a bit as well…so that too many folks won’t go out and purchase this technology, thus denying me a great advantage! And it is a great advantage in many, many situations.
As for fish in and over thick weeds, let us know if you can dial that in. Generally, this has not been where the M360 shines. Rocky and boulder areas too. I’ve only been able to see fish in these type areas when they are riding higher up in the water column where the M360 can separate the fish from the thick cover. Otherwise, the heavy weed growth or rock cover tends to obscure them. That is in a drifting/moving boat though. Perhaps the ultra-stationary use on ice will allow better fish detection.
Now, when fish are off to the sides of cover over sand/gravel flats, or for fish suspended in open water, that unit is worth its weight in gold. The fish in these situations stick out like a bunch of sore thumbs.
This screen shot from the summer months is a good example. The image shows a large school of walleyes sitting over sand at the 12:00 to 2:00 position, just off a thick weedline that runs N to S on the right side of the screen. On the left side of the screen are what appear to be sunfish beds but in reality are too deep to be beds (12-13’) and are more likely where bottom feeding fish – whitefish and suckers in this lake – root around for buried insect larvae, leaving circular depressions. In this particular case, I anchored up-wind of the school for stealth reasons and followed them around as they moved, casting various baits with quite a bit of success. This scenario is common with the M360 – as in every time on the water. I, for one, would’t want to fish without it. Yes, the M360 truly is ‘stupid good’. Combined with a Livescope? Deadly…
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From what I’m seeing with the 360 is that your using it to locate fish and structure, but not actually fishing with it. Or is there a way to switch views and use it for when your line is in the water?
From what I’m seeing with the 360 is that your using it to locate fish and structure, but not actually fishing with it. Or is there a way to switch views and use it for when your line is in the water?
Yes, you can connect both the 360 transducer and a standard ice transducer using the 7-pin y cable. You can switch back and forth from a full screen view of 2D sonar or 360 or split the displays on screen.
That said, the way I’ve been using it is more to locate the fish and structure leaving the 360 in a centrally located hole and then using my 7-inch Helix to drop on the fish versus moving the mega 360.
Brian, in your image those are probably sunfish beds. This past summer we returned to a lake that we fished for Northerns 20 years ago. On this particular lake there would be about a 1 week period each summer that the big Northerns +36″ would turn on trolling cranks over/around structure in 12 – 15′. In those days only had a flasher.
This summer went to the same spots as 20 years ago but this time of course had SI. There were sunfish beds in 12 – 15′ of water by the hundreds. The big Northerns were still there, even caught a few large sunfish on cranks to verify why the Northerns were still there. The images from SI this summer looked pretty identical to your image.
As I fish mainly ML during the summer for SM, if anyone ever gets it dialed in to be able to locate the SM in/around the rocks, please post up your results and images. I would like to get 360 but haven’t seen any evidence yet to show SM in the rocks, like on ML.
Found ’em! It took about 2 hours of hunting with nothing to show for our efforts before we stumbled on a really nice school of perch. The tight group is located about 10:00 in the attached photo.
27 feet of range? As in 54 feet of coverage?
Found ’em! It took about 2 hours of hunting with nothing to show for our efforts before we stumbled on a really nice school of perch. The tight group is located about 10:00 in the attached photo.
27 feet of range? As in 54 feet of coverage?
Correct. The width of each ring is shown below the range in the screen captures. I believe the width was 6.8′ in the image you’re referencing.
Brian, in your image those are probably sunfish beds. This past summer we returned to a lake that we fished for Northerns 20 years ago. On this particular lake there would be about a 1 week period each summer that the big Northerns +36″ would turn on trolling cranks over/around structure in 12 – 15′. In those days only had a flasher.
This summer went to the same spots as 20 years ago but this time of course had SI. There were sunfish beds in 12 – 15′ of water by the hundreds. The big Northerns were still there, even caught a few large sunfish on cranks to verify why the Northerns were still there. The images from SI this summer looked pretty identical to your image.
As I fish mainly ML during the summer for SM, if anyone ever gets it dialed in to be able to locate the SM in/around the rocks, please post up your results and images. I would like to get 360 but haven’t seen any evidence yet to show SM in the rocks, like on ML.
I love my M360 and used it on ML for SMB several times this year. I can’t see fish in the rocks with any consistency (same as side imaging). I do like knowing exactly where the biggest boulder or rock pile is, though!
James,
Maybe something to try on the 360. Increase the range and hit the plus key to zoom in to 2x. I have found it looks better to me like that.
Thanks for showing the 360. It is a pretty cool tool sometimes.
What a great job James it had to be plain as- fun.
When using Mega on hard bottoms or rocks I don`t have 360 just SI do like James mention turn your sensitivity down and contrast up other wise you blow out everything, the fish will show up as white marks. Me personnely for this type of searching I use the blue screen as fish will show white.
I have a universal M360 on my boat and I’m considering trying it out on the ice. I know a lot of water drains out from around the spinning transducer when I pull it out of the water, has it or can it freeze and damage anything in there? Thanks
I have a universal M360 on my boat and I’m considering trying it out on the ice. I know a lot of water drains out from around the spinning transducer when I pull it out of the water, has it or can it freeze and damage anything in there? Thanks
Minn Kota did a lot of testing on this last winter and there’s no risk of damaging it through freezing. You may encounter some sticking of the rotating assembly if it’s really cold out but my experience so far has been if you put the pole in the water and give it a little time it melts and resumes normal operation. The short answer to your question is no you won’t damage it by using it in the cold.
Is there much of a future for these once their Live system comes out? It doesn’t seem the new system is getting a lot of good early reviews. But it’s all speculation at this point.
Is there much of a future for these once their Live system comes out? It doesn’t seem the new system is getting a lot of good early reviews. But it’s all speculation at this point.
You’re guess is as good as mine on that one. I can see situations where the 360 will outperform a live style sonar system and vice versa so in the end we might see anglers divided with preference of one over the other. Or course you can count on some on the bleeding edge of must have all the new gadgets using both.
Me personnely for this type of searching I use the blue screen as fish will show white.
I have yet to mess around with color palettes much as I’ve been focused on minimizing variables as I’ve been tinkering but I will definitely try that the next time out. Thanks for the tip, Tom!
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>BrianF wrote:</div>
James, what are you using as a power source for that M360?NORSK 15AMP Lithium.
That’s what I wanted to know.
Any word on battery life? How many hours on the ice?
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