Hey guys hummingbird help

[jayojay]

Hey guys just got a new hummingbird 798hd side imaging sounder for tournaments and was just looking for any help or tips on using them and getting the most out of them.
First trip I took it out around the basin on south coast and didn't really get much use out of the side imaging as it was mostly just a white screen. Used the sounder part of it( the part that shows up fish shapes and bait) and found a few patches and didn't get much use out of the down imaging structure scanner
I played around with the settings and watched the DVD but yeah still trying to work it out
One thing I'd really like to know is when fishing say 20 foot should I zoom in around the bottom or should I just leave it cause I found that it didn't show up weed patches in the same place were my old cheapo hummingbird piranha max 170 did clearly.
Also I fished about 15 foot flats and the side imaging was just white so how would you pick up bait on there
I know it takes a while to work it out but I have a grand final in 2 weeks and would love to get the most out of it
Any tips would be great

[StuKlose]

Mine was good out of the box but lowered it about 15mm and now get a better pic at speed.

With the side imaging pic a river you know and move at around 4 knots to see if you are picking up detail like bridges, pylons and other obvious stuff just to make sure the transducer is setup correctly. Also make sure that there is a clear path out to the sides of the transducer. I have to trim my motor up a bit to get the best pic.

Have fond down scan to be not very useful as you need dead flat water over 20m to get the detail and where I am using it it us very rarely draws flat.

Once you have your transducer setup correctly then start playing with the settings.

[jayojay]

Will do mate I got mine installed at a marine workshop but I don't reckon it's low enough so I might have a play with it and yeah good point with the motor trim that's a good point, how have you found the side imaging mine just showed plain white which was a but fuzzy and yeah no weed or anything maybe the basins not the best place for it due to it being plain both

[Riverboyz]

Jay

I've just recently bought the same sounder and have sounded a little bit of the basin. Been trying to take pictures of the new reefs.

I bought an SD card that you can put in the sounder and when you press the MARK (i think it is) key it takes a snapshot of whatever screen i'm on so i can bring it home and work out what the hell it was trying to tell me at the time.

I'll try and put some shots up later of different things i've found, not just in the basin but also the shoaly river.

I've only had mine for a couple of months but am still learning what it can do.

Also don't forget to get the updates off the humminbird website. (you need an SD card to do this).

Cheers for now

Adam

[jayojay]

Sweet mate yeah I'll have to get a card for it definitely, I'm heading out the basin tomorrow so I'll play around on it abit see if I can work out how to find the cockle beds on the sounder the other day when I went out the bottom always just come up red so real difference

[flmthrwr]

Try Youtube. Type in Humminbird side imaging I think it is.

Some really useful stuff there. There is an 8 minute clip that really explains it well. Skip the Humminbird official ones, they tell you nothing.

[Cheyne_jones]

I have the same unit, pretty cool piece of gear.

If you are getting a white screen on the side scan something is not right. No matter what area I am fishing I can get so much detail out of the side scan, such as small rocks, twigs, sunken junk etc. I'd say its not low enough, set at the wrong angle or your outboard leg is interfering with the side scan.

[jayojay]

Yeah It shows pretty much no detail hey I'll have to have more of a look at it I'll take some pictures of the screen see what everyone reckons, that's the problem with getting the boat place to put it in they have no idea I'll have a prober look tomorrow when in out there tomorrow
Do you adjust anything in it's settings to get more out of it

[jayojay]

The other thing is it's mounted on the transducer plate on the back of the boat any ideas on how to lower it

[CSfish]

Jay

Get online and download Humviewer. Its a free download and will allow you to view your SI recordings. You will need to save the SI onto your SD card and put into your computer. Run Humview and it should all come up.

Just remember you cant go fast (3 to 5 knotts) and keep your boat straight. Plus if its choppy you wont necessarily get good SI.

If its your motor creating the problem, you should still get good SI on the starboard side.

At first, keep your setting at auto. This should be ok to start. Then play around with it later on. The auto setting should give you satisfactory SI.

From a transducer height point of view, I actually dropped my transducer by 1cm lower than on the instruction. Once I did that the SI was much better and I can hold bottom reading for depth to 20 knotts.

Best of luck. Its awesome once you have it all working.

CSfish

[snag]

Ring Hummingbird In Qld And They Can Send You Out A Dvd Thats Shows You How To Use Your Unit.

[royflatmate]

Jay if you google humminbird 798c ci manual you will get the full manual in pdf .Plenty of info here to read about settings and as previously mentioned on youtube there are a few good clips.Best bit of advice i got when i bought mine was to go to a place your familiar with and play with all the buttons you cant break anything.I knew there was lots of trees in mullet creek but theres so many more down there.


cheers..............Roy

[Fish-Tec]

Mate where do you live

[jayojay]

Thanks guys online in kiama