Rigging/Pushing Sonar & DI Settings

[Lonnie84]

What do you use the most when rigging/slow trolling/pushing, 2D Sonar or DI and what are your normal settings for each of them.

[escout]

I have a Helix 5 DI up front, and keep it on DI. It is an older unit, so main thing is to set the max Depth so you see what you are looking for. It does amazingly well. Has a DI transducer(not Mega or chirp).

On the console I have a Helix 9 SI Mega Chirp G2N. I have a remote, so I turn it around so I can see it from the front, and set three presets. One is DI and Map for waypoints, One is either DI or SI only, and One is DI and Map. I can switch between these with the remote, and also mark a waypoint if I see or catch something I want to remember. The SI is good for finding schools of shad or fish, and for finding structure. This setup can give me a crik in my neck sometimes, but really helps put me in productive water. Play with settings so you can see the shad schools, and vary the range depending if you are blindly looking or examining a known area. Good Luck!

[escout]

Oh yeah, the 2D picks up too much in our muddy and weed filled water, so it gives too many false indications to suit me, but some people can do well with just 2D alone. I remember fishing 40 years ago with a flasher that had the transducer mounted on the trolling motor foot. We got in a school of hybrid stripers but they were hard to follow. I turned the transducer so it read to the front on a horizontal plane. I could scan side to side with the trolling motor foot pedal and see blips. I could catch those blips!! I kept it a secret for three fish then shared the info with my fishing partner!!

[CrappiePappy]

I have a Hook 7 (2d/DI/GPS) and a map chip ... I usually have the screen totally on DI ... 800kHz ... blue palette. My previous unit was a Elite 5DSI (DI only) and the palette color & 800kHz settings were what I ended up using most of the time, so I just set the Hook 7 to those same settings. I normally keep the depth setting at 20ft, as I'm not normally fishing any deeper than that.

Never was real "happy" with 2d, so I mostly used my 2d b/w units to tell me depth and show me the occasional brushpile or submerged timber. Since getting units that have DI and show me "underwater photographs" instead of "finger paintings or a Rorschach Test", I've really not seen the need for a split screen (2d/DI) on the Hook 7.