Who makes the best side finding locators and why ?

[blummer]

A friend of mine ask me about these and I didn't really know.So you guys that have'em can you weigh in on this.He fish salmon out west in river and want to be able to view the water to his side.Thanks for you time

[NW Angler]

I currently use the Eagle Tri-Finder-2 with its 150 degree cone on my bow mount electric. I much prefer it over the Bottomline sidefinders because of the more useful coverage angle and screen details. But in my opinion, the best side finder WAS the Lowrance X-55a...you could split the screen and show left&right/ left&down/ or right&down with good detail. You could quickly glance and see which side and distance a fish was from the boat. By splitting the screen, no one signal (e.g., bottom signal) could overwhelm the other views in shallow water. Also, I found by occasionally turning my bow mount electric 90 degrees, I could scan ahead of the boat and actually detect fish before I spooked them with my boat...(I can still do this with the Tri-Finder-2). With the x-55a, I could also track a contour with half the screen and still scan outward or inward to see fish or locate structure. However, the X-55a was an analog model and is no longer sold nor repaired by Lowrance...mine died a couple years ago. The Tri-Finder-2 model is a digital model and has better definition, but you do not have the option of showing split screens...signals from the left, right and bottom are all overlayed...so you have to look closely at each fish ID signal returned while in the Fish Track mode to determine which side of the boat. The Tri-Finder-2 is still useful in finding fish in a deep water reservoir that might be suspended...but not does have any advantage over normal units in shallow water due to the overlap with the bottom signal that can't be shown separately. Wished the features of the x-55a were included in the Tri-Finder-2.

[Fryar]

I was thinking about getting the tri finder,..everyone here seems to be interested in more pixles and power to see a fish a hairs width off the bottom. I think I'm drifting over to the idea that I would rather scan the water looking for activity. Especially this time of year I can go some distances with my 20 degree cone and very sensitive sonar and not see any thing,..I pretty sure it would see um if they were in the cones view but I had an old Eagle 3d some years ago that had an effective 60 cone of search,.it had a small screen and not a lot of pixels but I think that did better in my fishing wants,..You say in shallow water it is limited though? How shallow are you refferng to?

[NW Angler]

Sometimes I fish for walleyes in 8 to 12 feet of water...then the bottom is closer than stuff out to the side in the 150 degree cone...So the bottom signals cover up any of the longer range side scanning signals. When I am fishing in deeper water..say 25-30 feet, the bottom is further away and so it is better. It works very good in the deeper water...say 45 to 200 feet...then side scanning is a big plus. It is easy to pick out kokanee, cruising steelhead and trout as well as suspended walleye in our reservoirs. The Tri-Finder-2 has 240 vertical pixels and which is plenty of definition to pick up walleyes (and perch)just off the bottom in 30-40 feet of water...I see them regularly.