[tolopesco]

Dear mates,
By reading the instructions, Interphase forward sonar tech looks to me the "ultimate" gadget for fish finding. In the other hand I do not know how well it works in practice. Did somebody try that?. Can you give me advise?.


Best Regards,

[Bertram]

Hello,

Forward looking sonar works only in serious commercial equipment designed for pro fishing. Big names such as Furuno and Simrad make fantastic forward looking sonars but they don't offer them in their leisure marine range.
To get proper reading you need a very big transducer (to get a focused beam) mounted on a gyroscopic system to combat the boat movement due to wave and swell action. Otherwise the beam will go all over the place and messes up the receiver.
What you are showing here is designed for lake fishing in steady conditions at a very limited range...

Cheers,

B

[JON]

Bertrand ,

THUS SPEAK ZARATHUSTRA of sonar world !

Jon .

[sailfish1]

Sorry sorry sorry
I own an Interphase forward looking sonar and IT WORKS
here in spring we have the albacore season and little tuny season
and this is helpfull
the range is max 250m forward but it is enough to see a school of tuna below the surface and their swimming direction
this is not as accurate as pro instrumentation that can ''see'' an anchovy or krill bowl but it allows me to decrease blind trolling

JJ

[Bertram]

Hello

It is good to be proved wrong and I am willing to believe JJ as he is giving hands on experience. Very informative as I haven't seen much of these on the sportfishing fleet around the Med.
Every time we have tried detecting mackerels on forward looking beams with leisure marine equipment we failed. The beam kept hitting the surface giving false echoes of what the owner thought was a ball of bait. Adjusting the sensitivity didn't improve the situation very much.

How deep and where is positioned your transducer and what angle/frequency are you working on ? What is the cone angle of the forward beam and how far can you detect fish ? Your response will be very interesting.

Thanks,

B

[sailfish1]

-have a look here
technically you will get the answers
www.vitelectronics.com/interphase.html
I own the PROBE model with transom mount
I know that it works
for the record ,I often troll along the port jetty in my town and the depth is around 25m and many time there are spearfishermen that dont bother to put any diving flag or buoy and with the help of the sonar I can locate them its prevents me to scalp them
BTW,during a world cup of trolling in Antibes 4 years ago many of the boats were
equipped with some of those sonar and it was working not bad cause most of the time we located fish in the screen we had bites a few minutes after
JJ

[scorpio]

Hello All,

These interphases are used by some of our local gamefishing charter operators here on the east coast of Sydney, Australia.

I don't think there the " be all " of soley finding your fish without combining it with radar/sonar too. Thats the info talked about by these operators.

I suppose it will give a slight edge in minimising " blind trolling " going forward.

Hey Sailfish1, Why don't you scare the crap out of those spearfisherman without any flags/bouy's in that 25mtrs. It might teach them a lesson !

Tight Lines !

Scorpio

[sailfish1]

I cant ,I need them to bring me back some jigs I stuck on the wrecks
their lives for a jig

[tolopesco]

Hi Sailfish1,
You have got a Probe model: I can understand from the technical concerns raised by Bertram that probably this equipment will not work very well when the beam was directed to the surface because of the movement of the boat (speed or rough sea) but if it only worked detecting albacore or tuna in a 250 meters range when the sea is nice and with trolling speed up 7 knots, that would be still a big advantage for my way of fishing.

That equipment has also the standard fishfinder mode which shows the bottom after the boat. How does it perform in that mode compared with conventional fishfinders of $1500 level?.

I would thanks all additional information you or the other mates could give me.

Best Regards,

[sailfish1]

Hi Top
as the transducer is located in the back of the boat and not at the bow there is less influence on the angle
the ''eye'' is made of 8 beams that scan the water and not one or two like a classical fish finder
as my model is not coloured the new generation of fish finders like raymarine or furuno seems to be better but I must say when I compare it to my other fish finder a raytheon 465 it is better with more details of the ground

if you learn how to properly work with it ,it makes the difference
if there is some fish in the area you have good chances to locate it
here in Israel we mostly fish in shallow water (up to 50m) and the Probe offers me a wide pics of what I see ahead from the bottom to the surface
I hope I helped

[tolopesco]

Many thanks to sailfish1 and all the others.

I am now quite convinced to buy the Color Twinscope model . I will inform you further in spring time about its performance here at Valencia coast.

Best Regards,

[sailfish1]

topolesco
I am sure this is a very good choice
good luck
sailfifh1