Wayne P.

First of all there is no such thing as "downimage sidefinder" and you do not have any imaging capability. You have a regular sonar unit with two sonar crystals. One of the crystals transmits a vertical pulse and the other crystal transmits a horizontal pulse. You either have a Bottomline Side Finder or a Humminbird Fishin' Buddy with SideFinding (sonar on a stick). The simple answer is you have to use whatever presentation gets to the depth that the fish are or close to it. If the water is 15' deep, with the fish close to the bottom and all you are using is a crankbait that dives to 5', your chance of a catch is very low. This is what Down Imaging looks like:

A 570 DI is not a power hog. Are you sure the battery is dying or you just don't have good enough wires and connections to support the unit?

I have been fishing and catching at a clear water lake a lot and using a vertical presentation in brush piles and weed edges in depths of about 6'-10'. The horizontal distance was zero and casting distance was zero. If you are beating the banks, it only makes sense to keep some distance away, but with cover being the pattern, it's not that big of a deal. Basically whatever myth/fact you believe about distance is what you will do.

Read the PM I sent you for a better unit at a better price. BTW, any unit can be set up as portable.

<p>Bottom line is, any imaging is better than no imaging. It shows details a lot better than traditional sonar. This is an example of a Down Imaging image of a bridge support:

Superline, nylon monofilament, copolymer monofilament, and flurocarbon monofilament.

To add to Fishes in trees post. Fish that live in a timber filled lake don't find all the trees remarkable, they relate to bottom features just like a lake without timber. The pattern here is the creek channel and has nothing to do with the timber. This is at Lake Fork: The same pattern here also at Briery Creek Lake in Va.:

Regarding weedless hook Senkos for timber. I make my own that has a weedguard that won't release just by bumping into hard cover but will release when setting the hook. I add a braided stainless steel guard on a 4/0 Gamakatsu Octopus hook #02414 and use a piece of 1/8 heat shrink tubing to attach it. The wire is Malin-7 in 60# test.To make the Senko more durable, I use a piece of 3/8" heat shrink tubing like this:

Additional comments: What some are doing is adding an additional battery for just the electronics or upsizing the starting battery to the largest Dual Purpose that has the MCA that the engine requires. You are requiring the starting battey to do deep cycle duty by running the electronics, pumps, lights and any other accessories and you normally don't run the engine long enough to even make up for the amps used to start the engine. The high end electronics are sofisticated computers that are sensitive to voltage issues just like your home computer is. That issue is discussed quite often on another site by Humminbird and Lowance owners.

What you are experiencing is very common with the newest electronics. You cannot just use a voltmeter to check for issues. A voltmeter does not put any load on the circuit to indicate there is any issue. The units shut down due to low voltage because of the load (current draw). That means there is enough resistance in the wiring to not provide the current to operate the unit. The unit voltage readout will give you an indication of what the load voltage is. Humminbird recommends that the power cord be connected directly to the battery and if the cord needs to be extended, use at least 18 guage wire (I used 12 guage marine grade wire) solder the splices and insulate and use a spade type fuse on the positive conductor. Make sure the battery is in good condition and the connectons are clean and tight. For a bow installation the resistance of the wire itself has to be included in the trouble shooting since the longer a wire is the more resistance it has. Typical boat wiring harnesses do not have large enough conductors to offset the resistance (voltage drop) due to the wire length. Any junctions in the wiring also add resistance along with any switches. Remove all of that with the direct wiring.

There is no such item as a "boater's license" in Va. "In 2007, the Virginia General Assembly enacted a law to establish a boating safety education compliance requirement. This requirement will be phased in over the next several years and by 2016, all operators of PWCs (Personal Watercraft such as jet skis, Sea Doos, Wave Runners) and operators of Motorboats with a 10 hp or greater motor, will be required to have a boating safety education course completion card on board when operating a PWC or Motorboat." There is a more detailed schedule below that statement on the VDGIF web site that concerns age groups.

I did a close range setting scan of that pile of stuff in the first picture today after the bass quit biting to show you how the range setting affects the image size:

The Enhance Sharpness setting is used to highlight fish. Med or Low does well without adding too much grainyness to the image. You choose the SI color that YOU can see the best. Some like other colors. I change during the day to the one that I can see the best at any particular ambient light. Most of the time I like the Inverse pallet (as posted) to show fish and people (SAR operations). The Sensitivity should not be a static setting, use it as a screen brightness control and change as needed according to depth and bottom hardness. Use a screen scroll speed that is close to the GPS speed. A little faster will make returns larger. Use a SI range setting about 3 times the depth when fishing and to get a better look at a subject. You can use a longer range setting for general searching to show larger features. Consider this: if you have a SI range setting of 100' and a depth of 20', that is 240' that is displayed on that small screen. A 12" fish isn't going to be very noticeable with that size ratio. Get to know your equipment by stopping the screen from scrolling when you see something interesting by pushing the 4-way botton. You can then make any setting changes to get that particular display to look the best-color, sharpness, sensitivity, and range. This is a similar fishing "structure" with Down Imaging and regular sonar-taken for demo purposes. It may be the same one--don't remember since there are about 50 of them in that lake:

Catching that number at that lake is not unusual. That is why I suggested it for numbers. The rig in my avatar produced the most and I used several other presentations, BUT it wasn't about what I was using it is WHERE. The lake is mostly surrounded by submerged weeds out to the 10'-12' depths. I always fish the outside edge of the weeds after they do the late Spring growth, and don't beat the banks like most do and have the fish behind me. The fish are so easy to catch, you can use whatever you like. I've caught over a 100 bass in a single day there several times. On 8/12 I caught 99 and the boat with two fishermen that loaded up to leave just ahead of me hadn't got a hit all day. They were doing the typical beating the banks.

BOTH, my replies are based on the topic and the perceived skill level of those participating. If you want to see fish, you have to set the unit to display them the best. First of all consider the size of the fish in relation to the SI Range setting. When using a 100' range in 20' of water, that is 240' displayed on that tiny screen. A 12' fish is not going to be noticeable. A general "rule of thumb" to see fish is set the SI range to three times the depth unless the water is less than10' deep, then set it to a long cast. Turn off the left side digital readouts to get full screen width SI so stuff will look larger. Use the Enhance Sharpness setting to highlight the fish--Med or Low works the best without getting the image too grainy looking. Set the screen scroll speed to the GPS speed. You can use a faster screen scroll speed to make returns appear larger also and stretch a brush pile or tree to see inside the limbs better. Use a SI color that you can see the best according to the ambient light. I change often during the day. Each person has different likes for color. Adjust the Sensitivity to get the best images all the time don't just "set it and forget it". All the settings those units have are for a reason--to allow you to get the best images for any condition. This is shad and crappie with 4 bass on the bottom (right side). How do it know what they are? I know the lake and I caught several crappie and two of the bass after taking this screen shot.

I don't remember if I posted this on this site, but here is an example of how Side Imaging will show where cover is in relation to the transducer and Down Imaging and regular sonar just shows it is down there somewhere. In this case I would have been deploying my presentation on the left side of the boat. I did fish this man made fish attractor done with cleared timber during lake construction and caught several bass and had some crappie hits with a plastic worm. Another benefit with Side Imaging is of you drift off the cover, you can see where it is and move back to it, no search pattern needed to do so. You don't even have to use a waypoint with a chart view to stay on it. This is with my bow unit and the transducer is on the trolling motor. I was fishing an electric-only lake. I was using settings to highlight fish so the overall images are not as sharp as when I have it set to show just bottom features.

Good question, two things have produced those results--a boat and a sonar unit. I remember reading about some angler a long time ago that stated the only reason he got a boat was to have a place to mount his sonar unit. Since I got the first sonar unit sometime in the 1960's--it was a Shakespeare flasher that attached to the top of a 12V dry cell battery with a suction cup transducer mount, I have convinced myself to get away from the bank and fish where most of the fish are. With any sonar unit you can find underwater depth changes that may be where the fish are---points, creeks, humps, steep drops, etc. What that does is give you the opportunity to fish for mostly undisturbed fish since a majority of fisherpersons can't seem to get further from the shore than they can cast.

Don, I have the Motor Guide Safari prop that is supposed to be great in weeds, BUT it is .6 mph slower than the Machete which I don't need since I fish several electric-only waters. I just have it as a spare now.

I am not going to go thru all my notebooks to get a count. No, I haven't caught over 2,000 every year for 40 years. Some recent years: 2006--2,320 2007--2,537 2008--3,197 2009--3,100 2010--2,769 2011--2,430 Being retired and not fishing on crowded weekends has its advantages. A couple of older years 1985--1,024 1994-- 766 jay-b, I have fished 57 days this year and my lowest number is ZERO and the highest is 105. I only count the bass. The rest I catch are trash fish as far as I am concerned.

I've been keeping catch records for about 40 years. It sure is easier with a computer than a notebook-LOL

I have a clicker counter on the boat and I have a spreadsheet on my computer to record the results.

My running total for this year is 2,061

I catch the most for a day's fishing at Hunting Run. I haven't caught any big ones this year, just a few in the 7# class

I am still catching bass: lots of them too. Hunting Run, Sandy River Res, tidal Potomac, and Briery Creek. It was quite cool this morning.

I use Humminbird Side Imaging and I basically "sight" fish all the time no matter what time year or the depth. I see the fish and fish for them. I don't waste my time fishing where there are no fish. I use that technology at the console with a transom mounted SI transducer and at the bow with a trolling motor mounted SI transducer. If you are considering Humminbird Side Imaging or Lowrance with Structure Scan, get the largest display you can afford. In this case "size matters". Screen size doesn't matter that much for regular 2D sonar or Down Imaging/Down Scan, but the wider the display is with the side looking imaging, the larger the returns will be displayed. I have the 5" display model and the 10.4" models.