Thread: First day with the 360

I've ditched the boat and am all in on the kayak scene. Have had several Hobies over the years and prefer it over the boat. Got a new pro angler and had the opportunity to upgrade my electronics. Been wanting to try the 360 for years and finally took the plunge. Paired with with the Helix 9 G2N GPS/Sonar model.

My first thought....lots of potential.
My second thought...lots to learn.

After a quick loosening and re-orientation (yep I installed it backwards), I felt good with the bearing and display. Was a tough day to test, 20mph winds, heavy chop, and I didn't bring an anchor. The default settings seemed fine to me, used the blue and amber palettes. Set the range between 40 and 60 feet and kept the scan to the front 180 degrees. I spent a lot of time beating the shoreline, both because of the wind, but it also let me see protruding grass/vegetation and correlate it to what was on the screen. I kept mistaking lily pads for fish. It picked up pad stalks 40 feet away that barely had a pad on the surface until you were right next to it. I was also impressed with the scan speed and wonder if the faster processor helps that. Did not have any lag issues and was recording Autochart live in the background.

I did find a submerged log near the shore I did not know was there and pulled a bass off of it.

Here's the setup:



The ram mount worked ok, but had too much play in it for my liking when deployed. After lots of research, am going to install the fishing specialties mount off the front right mounting board. Fortunately the shaft is the same diameter as a paddle and the paddle clips will hold it nicely when stowed.

The wind looks better for the weekend so will try to get some more practice and pictures. In the meantime, I'll be watching YouTube for the next few hours

Discovered a whole new application for the 360 today...spider rigging!! Absolutely amazing. I set the range just a bit deeper than the depth and reduced the scan to the front area only and kicked the speed up. Doing this, I saw my two rigs, both the sinker and jig head. I literally watched fish swim towards the bait and hit it, was remarkable.

First picture shows my 2 rigs at 10 & 2 o'clock:



Second picture shows fish all around the left bait:



Oh and while not well pictured here, the "cheap chirp" on this unit is beyond sufficient for target separation. Huge improvement over the G1 Helix units.