Finally upgraded from elite 7 to hds touch gen2 so that I can use structure scan. For any Lowrance salesmen who read this, it is a direct result of the reefmaster software that has got me hooked and willing to spend more on upgrading Lowrance products, so I hope the ability to record and share data remains in future Lowrance developments!

Anyway, a question for those of you who are into sidescan. Last time I used sidescan, it was using a tow fish (Waverley). I have seen that some rm users have also developed tow fish to mount their LSS-2 transducers. I am thinking about doing the same, but was wondering if the results are hugely different from transom mounting? I guess you can get deeper and improve resolution, but is it going to make much difference in relatively shallow water < 50m ?

Thanks.

While towing can be fun and get good results in deep water I would stick to transom at the depths you are at.

I would try to keep the transducer max 10 meters from the bottom for optimal performance and high detail of the bottom structures.
That means you need a tow fish for any depth below 10 meters.
The range you can get from a sidescan is approx 10xdistance from bottom on each side and then you have the other limiting factors like the amount of energy you get in each ping. I usually have my range at around 30-40 meters. or even less in really shallow waters.
Shorter range means higher ping rate since it doesn't have to wait for the return echos that long, but I think the Lowrance maxes out at 10Hz which means that ping rate wouldn't be limited unless you have a range of 75 meters or more. Short ranges also means that the rather small amount of data that is stored for each ping is used to describe a shorter distance, which gives you higher details.

I would recommend a bow mount to get the best performance in shallow water, very low noise and free view for the transducer.

/hakan

Thanks....

Hadn't thought about a bow mount, will rig up something and test the differences between bow and stern mount.