Andy135

It's good that you found this out now. Smart move to get your money back - there are plenty of sound boats out there to choose from. 👍

Some nice sharks and great footage there Rob. 👍 What make is your boat?

Hi Gary, The US is the major market for sidescan, which is why most of the marketing material and videos are aimed at their style of fishing. As for bream, yes. SS can identify their nests; they show up as clusters of circular patterns on the sea floor. I may have a pic somewhere that I'll dig out. As for transducers, your Simrad Go should be compatible with any of the transducers from Navico, the parent company of Simrad, Lowrance and B&G. They have two transom mount SS transducers worth considering at present. Active Imaging 3-in-1 or TotalScan. If you're evaluating whether to invest in SS, then I'd say that if you only ever fish the marks that you already have then you probably don't really need SS. But if you like to scout around for new marks or like to see what wrecks look like then SS is a good tool because you can search much wider swathes of the sea floor vs regular downscan sonar. It makes pinpointing wrecks much easier or spotting structure that could be a fish holding feature.

Yes, I noticed that too. They're from Humminbird's new Mega range. I believe they're the first manufacturer to introduce megahertz frequencies to the recreational boating market. https://www.humminbird.com/learn/imaging/mega-imaging You're right about higher freqencies. Generally the higher the freq = the higher the res but water penetration suffers = shallow water only. You can see on my images that the 800khz image is much darker and harder to interpret than the 455khz image and this is why I don't anticipate UK anglers needing to invest in the megahertz range - the water we fish in is simply too deep for it to be useful. In the US bass fishing market I can see that it would be beneficial if you're fishing shallow lakes (<10m depth) and hunting for individual fish that are hiding around submerged structure, but that's not our style of fishing. And finally, yes, tarpon are big fish - sadly not representative of our UK fishing but included as an example to illustrate how a fish shows up on side scan. I'd love to see something that size on my FF in the UK but it's unlikely. Pack tope maybe...??

One other point to add when looking for fish. In the UK it's rare that we have single large fish showing up on their own on a sonar image. We're more likely to see fish in small shoals... and this is often the best way to be certain that there are fish down there. If they show up as a shoal of bright spots/ovals, then it's probably worth dropping a line. If you can only see one or two isolated spots then a) they may not be fish, and b) even if they are, there are only a few of them so perhaps not worth trying to target them individually from 20m+ above.

Here's another Googled image that shows more clearly how a single fish shows up on sidescan. Note how shallow they are (8ft) which is one of the main reasons why the fish shows up so clearly, and so large. Fish at our depths will be much smaller and harder to identify.

Hi Gary, it's hard to say if they're fish or not. In the last image the white scatter at the bottom of the pic was my wash as I manoeuvred the boat whilst drifting. In the first pic its possible that the brighter specks could have been small baitfish, but with sidescan you can usually tell it's a fish or not by its shape; a fish will show up as a bright, elongated shape that looks vaguely like a fish seen from above. The specks in the pic seem more circular, so it's not clear cut. Here's an example of how fish show up on sidescan. This isn't my image (I just Googled it) and the shoal is in much shallower water, but you can clearly see the fish (tarpon) in the water column and their sonar shadows on the sea floor. I wouldn't expect this level of detail at the depth we fish over wrecks in the UK, but I would expect to see the rough shape of the fish.

These are birds eye view images (top down). The centre line is the blind spot directly below the transducer. It shoots either side of the boat but can't see directly below, hence the blind spot in the image. So in the first pic, the wreck was to the left of my boat as I drifted alongside it. The dark areas either side of the centre line is the water column but not directly down, rather it's the water between the sea floor to the left and right of the boat, and the transducer itself.

Got a few drifts over the Camswan in Sandown Bay the weekend before last. Here are a couple of pics, one at 455khz, the other at 800. The banana shape of the first and last pic is because I was trying to correct the drift half way through - doh! Still decent pics though. She's a hungry wreck... I lost 3 rigs on her in 3 drifts. Afterwards I did some research online and apparently she's known for having 4-5m tall beams running along her centre line, which can be clearly be seen in the last pic. No wonder I was losing tackle.

Wow! Scary stuff.

Yep, there's (unsurprisingly) been a mad rush for them round our way too. Wriggly gold!

What a result! Be rude not to get out on the water now! 👍

Sorry to hear that you two 😔. Fingers crossed you're able to get out as soon as it's safe for you both to do so. I've found it hard enough being stuck inside these last 8 weeks, can't imagine what it must be like for you seeing everyone else get out whilst still being at home.

So now that the government have clarified the scope of outdoor activities and confirmed that we're allowed out on our tubs to have a dangle who will be out there and what will you be aiming for? I'm planning to head east from Langstone with my son to see if we can find a plaice or two. It'll be an early start for us (4am) as we live inland but hoping to get the best of the weather on Saturday morning. Fingers crossed and tight lines all 🤞🎣

The Blue Sea Add-a-Battery kit makes the process simple. It was one of the first upgrades I did on my boat. Well worth it for peace of mind if nothing else.