How To Read Side Imaging Like A Pro

[Music] hey this is Tony with salt strong and in this video I wanted to share some tips with you to help you better understand site imaging or side scan side view whatever you want to call it different manufacturers call it something different but at the end of the day it's the same thing so I wanted to share these tips with you give you a visual representation of what you're actually looking at when you're looking at your bottom machine and also I have some images that I want to share with you to give you an idea of what certain things will look like when you're actually viewing them on your screen now when we get done with this video if you enjoyed it definitely be sure to give it a like and also be sure to subscribe to our channel where we put out fishing tips pretty much on a daily basis to help you catch more fish so first let me share with you sort of a visual representation that helped me better understand what I'm actually looking at when I'm looking at my screen for side imaging and it's as simple as this piece of paper so this is a piece of paper that I folded up and as you can see you have basically the same thing you would see on your side imaging screen you have that colored area off to the sides you have that black area in the middle so what this is basically showing is if you fold it up for it to look like that this top area that is going to be where your vessels at that middle line and then the black area that is going to be underneath your vessel and it's not just directly underneath it's underneath and out to the side a little bit because it shoots down what they call a cone and the deeper the deeper you are the wider that cone is gonna be the more shallow you are the more narrow that cones gonna be and I'm gonna explain a little bit more in depth into that here in a second but again in that black area as you can see that is going to be directly underneath you and also out to the sides a little bit and then that colored area right over here that is going to definitely be more out to your side so if you open up this piece of paper that is what you're looking at on your side imaging screen so going back to what you see here again that middle line that is your vessel the black area that is going to be from the bottom of your vessel to the bottom so from the bottom of your vessel down to the bottom and out to the side as you can see you have a right side or a left side depending on which way you're looking at this image but whatever side that is if let's say you see some fish over here they're going to be underneath you and out to that side and if you see them in that colored area that's definitely going to be out to your side now let's say you see a school of fish over near the colored area and the black area right over here and then you also see them in the same spot but on the other side that will typically mean that they are pretty much right underneath you in that cone and they're showing on both sides of the screen if they were just showing on one side then they would definitely be more out to that side as opposed to directly underneath you now something else when you are looking at the screen you're going to notice sometimes this black area is gonna get much larger that means you are in deeper water as that black area grows the water is getting deeper and this area might shrink a little bit so what you have to do is go into your settings and adjust the range if your range is too short let's say you only have it set to 20 feet and it's 15 feet deep this black area is gonna cover most of your screen and then you're just gonna have a small blue area so you definitely want to adjust that range increase that range to let's say 50 60 maybe 70 feet and that will give you more of a symmetrical view or you'll you'll just be able to see more out to your side as opposed to the bottom again because this black area it shoots a cone down and the deeper you are the larger that cones gonna be so to get the right image or to see more you're gonna want to adjust your settings to increase that range and just the opposite if you're fishing shallow you're gonna notice this black area be very very small and then the colored area is gonna be much larger in that case you can probably turn the range down a little bit but when I'm out there I usually keep it around 40 to 50 feet works very well in the shallows and also if you're fishing anywhere from you know 10 15 or even 20 feet deep and another thing when it comes to the range on the top of your screen you're going to see dash marks and those are going to be increments it could be increments of 5 feet 10 feet 20 feet whatever those increments are that's going to give you an idea of where the fish or the structure is out to your side so let's say you see fish in the blue area or structure in the blue area and then it's close to the 30 foot - mark that means they're gonna be 30 feet out to your side and what you have to understand is as you're going past structure and going past fish the screen it reads top to bottom no matter what so if you're if you're at if you're actively moving and you go over something or you go by something what's gonna happen is it's gonna show up on your screen after you've already passed it so depending on how fast you're going if you're going like 3 or 4 miles an hour it's usually gonna be out to your side and behind you probably 10 15 feet so you have to keep that in mind whatever you go over you have already passed whatever shows up on the screen you have already passed now something else that you have to consider if you're sitting still and all of us all of a sudden you see a school fish go by they go from the screen from top to bottom those fish can either be behind you or in front of you because the screen always reads top to bottom so if something's coming at you and it comes past you from the front it'll read from top to bottom if something comes up from behind you I mean it passes you to the front it's going to read top to bottom as well so that's one little trick you have to sort of figure out sometimes it will be in front of you and sometimes it will be behind you it depends on which way those fish are going but when it comes to structure obviously structures not moving so if you're moving straight along and you go past a piece of structure and you start seeing on your screen remember it is now behind you and to whichever side you saw it on on your screen so now let's go ahead and take a look at some screen shots I have some nice screen shots of a boat actually saw on the bottom using my side image and also a school of some really big black drum to give you an idea of what you actually see when you're looking at on the screen and what the side imaging is actually doing as far as the sonar how it works and what you're looking at so this first image that you see here this is a sunken boat that I found when I went over it and as you can see it's off to my right hand side and it's about 20 to 30 feet out to my side and obviously now behind me because I had just passed over it now this gives a very clear view as you can see it really puts some good detail on that boat you can almost see the benches that are in the middle of it and the entire shape of the vessel now this also gives a good representation of how the actual sonar works it's basically like a flashlight whatever the sonar hits it's going to light it up so you can see the outline of the boat looks sort of brighter or sort of white looking and then notice that shadow behind it that black area that is a shadow cast from just like how a flashlight works the flashlights gonna light it up sonar it's going to light it up then there's going to be a dead space behind it or that black area or that shadow so that is how you can tell if you're actually looking at structure and also if you are looking at fish they will do the same thing they will light up that either whiter or lighter color and then you will see a shadow that they cast almost like again how a flashlight would be lighting something up and casting a shadow behind it now in this case here this is a very large school of black drum and as you can see they are off to my left hand side I actually have my unit set to only view the left side which is another option you have so you can see more of the bottom especially if you do have a small screen so this is a school drum that's sort of underneath me and also out to my left side and you can see they are casting this really dark shadow across the bottom just because of how big the school is so if you see a big school of fish it's usually going to look like this sort of like a big blob with some darker lighter color lines in there and then you're going to see that black shadow cast along the bottom now this image here this is when I was starting to go over that same school of fish I am just coming up on them and you can see where there's pretty much a clear area there's no fish and then you can start to clearly see when the fish are starting to come into view now one last thing I wanted to touch on here is if you are sitting in place and you have structure right next to you that's obviously not moving or if you're sitting in place and you also have a school of fish or some fish that beam might be sitting right next to you and not moving what you're gonna see on the screen are these very long lines that just continuously keep going that is because your sonar is just constantly hitting those fish or that structure and bouncing back so it's giving a constant display or a constant read on your screen as opposed to when you're moving and the sonar hits the fish or the structure bounces back and then you pass it by and it doesn't hit that structure or those fish anymore and it displays a smaller or more precise image so that will wrap up this video on site imaging if you enjoyed this video definitely be sure to give it a like and subscribe to our channel now if you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave them down below also if you have any additional tips you would like to share when using side imaging definitely let us know down below until then thanks for watching and I'll see you on the next video hey there Joe Simon's one of the cofounders here at salt strong and have you claimed your free pack of these irresistible slam shady paddle tail lures we designed this lure with over 12,000 serious inshore anglers including many full-time guides to go out there and catch more redfish more speckled trout more snook more flounder more inshore saltwater slams and if you want a free pack to try out a sample yourself click down below right now we have one free pack per angler while supplies last click down below right now you

Channel: Salt Strong

Views: 30,035

Rating: 4.9914069 out of 5

Keywords: fish finder, depth finder, side imaging, side scanning, side view, how to read side imaging, interpreting side imaging, interpreting side scanning, interpreting fish finder, how to use fish finder, how to use depth finder

Id: 6UbF2orTC7I

Length: 10min 55sec (655 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 29 2020