Side imaging depth

Hello there. I’m looking at getting a new fish finder for my kayak. I was thinking about the helix 7 msi gps g4. I was wondering what kind of depth will side imaging work to? I fish anywhere from 5’-100’ on Lake Superior mostly. I’ve never used side imaging but I think it would be neat to have if it would work at deeper depths. If anything to see drops and structure that I’m not directly over. I’ve read that it can do something like 125’, but was wondering if anyone had any first hand knowledge. Thank you for any help

Screen size trumps generations on the units imo . I’d buy a used Helix 10 . Deeper you go the SI will become less relevant and harder to read . There will be more guys to comment for sure .

Alright. Makes sense to me. Just needed to hear some reviews or someone to give me their opinion. I’ve been looking and reading so much but nothing really about the depths I’m looking at.

Cabbage681 wrote:

Alright. Makes sense to me. Just needed to hear some reviews or someone to give me their opinion. I’ve been looking and reading so much but nothing really about the depths I’m looking at.

I’ve never used mine much over 30 foot . But I’d imagine it would start trailing off over that depth as far as usability . You’d be able to switch over to DI though and still have some useful info .

Ok thanks for the info. I figured there’d be a drop off somewhere at some point. I troll a wide range of depths too so it would be handy either way.

Something to consider.
Let’s say your scanning 200′ left and 200′ right.
Because the deeper you go the wider you must make your scan.
Now your trying to see 400 FEET of information on a screen not even a foot wide. Makes things pretty small.
Yes you’ll see terrain. Bottom changes, large objects. No you won’t have any real detail of fish as they’ll be the size of a single pixel on your screen.

Largest screen will benefit you here.
Though without some YouTube research I cannot say just how beneficial SI is in deep water.
I get into any 30′ of water and am typically widening my scan area to 100′. I’d imagine into 100′ depth you may be scanning up ward of 300′ each way. Lots of data on a little screen.

I wouldn’t even recommend a helix 7 for ..
Well, anything. Too much info on too small of a screen. Smaller screen less you should be scanning so you can actually see anything. I typically scan 70′ with my 1199 or helix 12 when in less than 20′. I’d suggest half that when screen is much smaller and the fact of the matter is that your depth demands larger scan area. So helix 7 would be worthless.

A helix 7 has a 1024 x 600 pixels screen, 6.125″ x 3.625″
A helix 12 has 1280 x 800 pixels screen, 10.26″ x 6.41″

Here is the math, a 100ft range is 100ft out each side of the transducer or 200 ft on the screen edge to edge with avertical height os 100ft. 1ft square cube on a helix 7 is approximately 5 pixels x 6 pixels on helix 12 is approximately 6 pixels x 8 pixels. On a helix 7 it is approx. 0.03 inches x 0.037 inches on the screen. On a helix 12 it is approx. 0.048 inches x 0.064 inches on the screen.

The real question is what are you looking for, fish or structure or both.
Fish are going to be really small in either case or the fish need to be really big…

The other thing about side imaging, it only really works when you are moving, it is really a narrow slice of the water column. With all that said, most side imaging transducers have a dedicated 2d crystal in them. Which can give you a 20 degree cone and cover a large area moving or not. No pretty pictures but great depth detail…

The helix 7 has a smaller transducer than the larger units. It will never show the same detail as the larger units on any frequency. With that and the small screen size I always recommend buying a used 9 inch or bigger over the 7. I used to run 999 and 1099. Learn to use one of those and you would be way ahead of the 7.

Id encourage anybody to look at both, a 7 vs a 12 and side image the same fish . 7inch screens are god awful at seeing fish . There was a G2N Helix 10 on FB Marketplace last night in the twin cities for 550 bucks . Ive bought 3 used helixs and everyone of them has been flawless (And saved me alot of money )

isu22andy wrote:

Ive bought 3 used helixs and everyone of them has been flawless (And saved me alot of money )

Great point! I bought 2 new HDS units last year and saved 50% because they were the prior generation.

I’ve been looking on marketplace now for something. I guess since I never have used side imaging before I have no clue what to expect. The larger the screen makes a ton of sense of course. When I bought my garmin striker 4 I had just purchased my pedal kayak, life jacket, dry suit etc. money was pretty tight for equipment after those purchases. The striker worked for what I was using it for at the time. But I wouldn’t mind a bigger screen now.

I didn’t mean to discourage the use of smaller budget screens, just to set expectations. A guy should be able to sit on a bucket and enjoy a day of fishing as much as the guy who has a 300′ scan area.

No you didn’t discourage at all. Would rather ask people and find out their opinions on it. I probably would have bought a 7 and thought it was good but could be better. Same thing I have with the garmin now. But that was cheap compared to the ones now. Buy once cry once kind of thing.