Quote Originally Posted by peter View Post
I have never used either one of those.

Some questions:

Did it take a lot of time learn how to use side scan?

Do you find yourself messing around with the unit a lot to look at the different views or do you just set it to your favorite view and go?

The demos I saw in the store on side scan the fish showed up as fairly faint small marks that would be hard to see from 10 feet away or so. Is that the case when you're marking stripers side scan?

Thanks for the info?
I dedicated several trips just so I could fully understand the settings and how they affect the screen. I went over the same locations over and over with changes in screen width, contrast (mine does not have auto contrast) and the different color overlays until found what I liked. I don't change the settings much. I'll side scan more narrow if I am in a creek and full wide if open water or on the main. I have the HDS G1 9 and the screen is plenty large enough to have a small chart, sidescan, down scann and sonar all on the same screen. The fish marks are different with side\down versus sonar. You have to consider that the sonar is a cone and the down side are not. I have the down image screen overlayed with the sonar. But I have all the information right there... I can see the dashes on the down\side, the marks on sonar and I can see which side it's on with the side. I can easily put all that together. Bait balls show very well on the down\side imaging. So I am moving along and I see a bait ball somewhere over on the starboard side. I move the cursor over to it and set a way. The way point shows on the chart plotter and I can navigate over to it. Stipernut likes bait and fish (and I do too), but I'll investigate any good sized bait ball whether I see fish around it at the time or not. Using the side imaging helps me pinpoint where the bait is at.