Forward Facing Sonar

[Aswayze]

I cruise the Great Lakes. I bought the Forward Scan unit to allow me to pick my way through tricky entrances and work my way up to remote docks.

Unfortunately, my Forward Scan unit typically does not pick up the bottom until I get into water less than 30 feet deep and then only after some time. Out at Isle Royale for instance, that basically means that I am already well into the skinny entrance, or I am about ready to tie my lines to the remote dock before the forward scan unit even gives me any data at all.

Even when I do get a return, the return is fairly spastic flickering up, down, back and forth and not really providing any useful data at a glance. If you stare at the screen, you can more or less interpret the data into telling you what is up there but picking your way into a thin entrance or poking around a shallow anchorage is exactly NOT the time to be staring exclusively at a screen.