I have one I love it for perch it is great for picking up the schools of perch hugging the bottom , walleye maybe in the western it would be better ,but I do use it when I notice fish on bottom ,If you don't mind spending a few hundred dollars on it i say go for it but if you have other needs as well I would get the other needs first . I hope this helps you out

 

Thanks Burnin, I already have the transducer and I am running a 30' boat with twin screws and not sure about how and where to mount on this type of boat as well. I am not sure the transom mount like I had on my inland boat will work the same?

 

That I am not sure of

 

Get ahold of Lance Valentine or Duncan Wooster. They're Lowrance guys.

 

Thanks for the info Jim, How do I get ahold of those fellows?

 

Lance Valentine has the following web site: http://www.walleye101.com/home

There is contact info on it.

 

mounting in deep v boat - be careful that can see well to both sides. my 30' Baha should have had a dual system for through-hull. i loose some fidelity as the beam hits my hull and other transducer. easy solition is hang off transom.

 

I have twin screws and not sure how that will work? How do you like the SS? Do you use it for both walleye and perch? Thanks

 

It's worth it. You can also see shell beds and clearly see where soft and hard bottom meet

 

Tight lines never did any research on side scan what am I looking at in those pictures

 

The bottom screen shot is showing a school of fish on the right side of the boat. All the white marks / lines are the fish. The next screen shot up shows a small bait ball on left side of boat with a couple bigger fish next to the bait. The top two pics just shows fish on both sides of the boat. Your looking at the whole water column from the transducer to the bottom as well as 120 feet out each side of the boat according to the pics. The dark blue in the center of the screen shot is the water under the boat then the lighter blue to the left and right is the bottom

 

The first 2 pics are suspended walleye. More on the right side of the boat. The third you got a a school of baitfish with a big walleye and what looks like a couple white bass on the left and a group of big eyes on the right. The last pic was actually a big school of white bass.

 

I use the downscan portion of the structure scan when trolling for walleyes split with my regular sonar on my Lowrance touch (haven't had a lot of use for the side imaging portion yet).

It can often differentiate between walleyes and other fish. On the downscan, the walleyes look like a stick whereas the drum and other trash fish look like a dot. I like it, helps confirm what you are seeing on the regular sonar. And just found out that king salmon on Ontario look like a BIG stick on the downscan

 

I use the downscan portion of the structure scan when trolling for walleyes split with my regular sonar on my Lowrance touch (haven't had a lot of use for the side imaging portion yet).

It can often differentiate between walleyes and other fish. On the downscan, the walleyes look like a stick whereas the drum and other trash fish look like a dot. I like it, helps confirm what you are seeing on the regular sonar. And just found out that king salmon on Ontario look like a BIG stick on the downscan

 

I have the Garmin 7608xsv dv/sv my vote is not worth it

 

If you fish a lot of structure it is worth it, It excels at finding isolated rock piles such that smallmouths are attracted to. If you mostly fish open water walleye and perch, not worth it. Your money would be better spent on a larger screen. I have it and have found little use for it in open water offshore walleye and perch fishing.

 

We have been using to see the walleye spread to the side of our downscan sonar.

 

Have any pics to share? Would love to see some more side scans of some big packs of walleyes. No coordinates of course! lol

 

I just put in a downs an on my boat, it's pretty neat. How useful it is I'm not sure yet. If you go for stuff near break walls I can see it being really useful. I typically leave it on traditional scan for walleye. The one issue with downscan is you need to be close to the finder to read downscan. I can read the arcs from any point where I fish in the boat just fine, but have to be almost sitting in front of the downscan. I also have one of the smallest screens they make.

At speed we get a little interference off the port side. There is a water wash down filter that dips down off bottom that i think produces turbulence that it picks up at any speed over marina speed. If I were to install the transducer again, it would probably be where it is now. I don't think there's much I can do to get rid of the turbulence.

The other con is it shows what you already passed. So it's not too much help navigating unknown low spots like marinas and small rivers.

My advice after spending 3 hour routing a transducer wire through a boat without being able to see anything is this. Took me about 6 total, wiring, drilling new mounts, bringing wrong electrical connectors, wrong fuse, etc etc.Do you want to install a new transducer who's coupling will get caught on everything when you try to snake it through your boat, then I'd say you want it enough and should buy it. Otherwise I'd buy an upgrade that could use my current transducer if possible.