Northwest Fishing Reports

Hello!

This weather has got me excited for bass fishing! I recently bought a Lowrance HDS5 with Structure Scan for my bass boat. In looking at the mounting instructions it says I can mount the structure scan on my trolling motor but quick movements of the trolling motor may cause funny images. I would rather have it here than at the back and only be able to see it when I am driving and searching for areas to fish (mounting it on the back).

Does anyone out there have any experience with structure/side scan mounted on a trolling motor?

Would love to hear any thoughts you may have.

EB

I'm sure you mean the transducer, not the structure scan box.

I can see where there would be a fuzzy image until the electric motor stops swiveling fast. If it's only swiveling very slow you can actually make a sweep of the scan around the boat/area and find the structure without even moving the boat.

You can mount it in the back and wire it to the front fish finder. Try mounting it temporary on the trolling motor with tape and see how you like it.

That is a good question, spokanebassman. I was going to add structure scan this year but opted not to but I had never thought of which unit to hook it to, really.

But some things here, you can share info from one HDS unit to the other through a Lowrance ethernet cable. What I am not sure of is: Does this info travel both ways when needed? I know for a fact that when I make a waypoint and my units are wired together with an ethernet cable that both units will receive and save all of that waypoint info, even the name of the waypoint, and it does not matter which unit I make the waypoint on.

I, also, know that if I want to run both units off of one transducer (so, the transducer on my trolling motor can share all the info that you would see in the front of the boat to the back of the boat), but that would only be one direction. So, not sure if you could send the structure scan info to the front unit if the structure scan was wired to the back WHILE using the front transducer. Does that makes sense. Don't need anyone doing the AFLAC duck here while I think out loud.

So, you can check into the NMEA 2000 backbone and wired up, pretty much anything that you would ever want to add to your boat if you have a place to run the wires. Here is a link if you are not familiar:

http://www.lowrance.com/en-US/Products/NMEA-2000/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

With this, I am pretty sure that you can wire the structure scan to the NMEA2K backbone and then to both units and then you will have structure scan where ever you want it, while motoring around looking for spots or while on the bow fishing.

Hope this helps.

I wrote all this assuming that you have two HDS units, is that correct? Hard tot ell for sure from your original post.

My first link is not informative at all, sorry. Here is a video you could watch, once again, if you are unaware of the NMEA 2K. I did not watch it as my niece was killed the other night up in Forks and I have to hit the road, but if it is not good, I know that if you Google nmea2k, you can find simple diagrams on how to wire it up, and I mean simple.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bDLVzoGI7s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks guys I do have two Hds units so I Will check into the
Ethernet thing may be the way to go

Hi guys, I have 2 10,s and a structure scan w/ the transducer in the back. It really was the only place. It couldn't imagine it on the trolling motor w/ all the rapid movement and Im really hard on my trolling motor anyway with working shallow not to mention its pretty good size. If your working down a lake bank and drifting with the wind I just point the bow into the wind to slow it down w/ the trolling motor which allows the stern to pick up the image 20 feet before I get there. With this I'm usually scaning left and right instead of straight down. Having said all that I do wish the transducer was up forward. Get a Ethernet cable installed to combine the imformation between the 2 units

With the cables they do share the structure scan info. I have my SS ducer on the back of the boat because it is huge and would rather not risk getting it banged up on trolling motor. The way I have been using it so far is standard sonar/down scan on the bottom of my trolling motor hooked to the bow and watch that for any cover up on the structure, when something catches my eye I wait for the back end to come over it with the SS and mark a waypoint on the actual cover. If it really looks promising I may spin around and hit it right away or make sure to spend sometime on it later.