Helix 5 (or similar) Can I see the trees?

[vwguru714]

Rich I have the helix 5 si. When I'm looking in an area where I want to navigate to with submerge trees this is how I do it.
Say I'm moving from South to North. I approach the southern most edge of the area on the eastern shoreline. I then turn my side imaging on for the starboard side and travel SLOWLY westward and map the area to the north. I can change the range up to 150 feet all directed to the north. When I reach the western shore I move north about 100 feet and turn back east, switch side imaging to port side and repeat. The nice thing is you can map and save the data.
Interestingly I did this in a small area of Charlotte Harbor a few times over the summer to get a better understanding of how the bottom changes with tidal action. I was amazed at how much contour change there was along a specific sandbar in just 3 months time.

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[richg99]

Thank you. Right now, I have settled onto...
#1 using the Humminbird 541 unit that came with the boat. I resurrected an old Humminbird transducer from a prior ?? unit. I installed it in place of the lost t'ducer and it works just fine.

#2. keep the Lowrance Elite 4 color unit that I had on the front of the boat. While it gave me some fits for a day or two, by spraying the on/off knob port with electronic parts fluid, the switch seems to work well.

#3. The Helix and similarly priced units all do not come with detailed maps. Even the $200.00 detailed maps don't seem to cover the trees and other areas that I want to fish. I found an older Nexus 7 pad that I wasn't using. I added the Navionics phone app and now I have a pretty decent, larger screen, Chart plotter. I am awaiting a secure bracket for the pad before I put it on the boat.

At the end the day, it appears that I only spent $7.00 for the bracket and $10.00 for the Navionics program. I now have two working FF /Depth units, and a 7-inch chart plotter.

Pretty good results, I'd say. Ha Ha richg99

 

[vwguru714]

Totally agree on the maps. I had a Garmin 541s and maps were awesome. I have navionics on my phone and I use it now.
Hmmm wonder if I could score a used tablet from Craigslist to use? That would be perfect.

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[olefart]

with side scan you can see the trees off to the sides of your path so if you have side scan and do a zigzag pattern you could locate the tree lines and also see if there is any fish back in them at the same time.
I have the lowrance HDS series and have been mapping the lakes near me, that I use anyway, and I love it. hasn't helped me catch fish yet I've been too busy mapping, once you start you'll want to have a complete map of every place your boat can go. lol. It really does make a huge change from available maps to what your actually seeing with the maps you make. No I don't share my maps with everyone else, cost me a bundle to be able to do this and nobody helped me pay for it. watching where people fish and then mapping that area and you can get a good idea of why the fish are there I plan on watching where ice fishing is going on then map those areas in the spring.

 

[mbweimar]

Rich, have you looked at the Elite 5 Ti unit from Lowrance? I purchased the Elite 7 Ti on Amazon for black Friday for a little over $600 with GPS and a transducer. I purchased it for my Weldbilt, but ended up using it on my offshore boat. The only down side I see is the size of the transducer. It's rather bulky. But it does CHIRP, down scan, and side scan. It's worth a look. I bet without GPS, the Elite 5 can be had for a reasonable price.

 

[richg99]

Luckily, I have fixed the errant Humminbird unit. I just replaced the missing transducer with an old one that I had in a box. I had to modify the t'ducer mounting a bit, but it is working fine.

I added an old Nexus pad that I had after loading it with the Navionics phone app.

The bow FF unit was giving me trouble, but spraying it with some electronic cleaner seems to have fixed that one, too.

Two FFinders; one chart plotter..all working.....my cup runneth over.

regards, richg99

 

[mbweimar]

Good deal! I must have missed the second page on this thread.