Kingfish Connection: How has side imaging changed your fishing?

Rick Murphy: This technology has given us a tremendous amount of confidence in what we normally have not been able to see. An example of this is when you’re fishing in dirty water and you see a baitfish flick. Now using the side imaging technology you can see the school of pilchards and target them accordingly. It’s really hard to have confidence when throwing a cast net, when you can’t see the bait. This side imaging gives you confidence because you can truly see the bait pods if they aren’t showing.

Sometimes in Everglades National Park when we are flats fishing for snook and redfish the water can be muddy. Now we can use the side imaging to look up structure and see whether a mangrove area is holding bait or not. When you are talking about 240 feet of coverage on each side, the side imaging is giving you a lot of area when the water is dirty and you can’t see. Whether the water is 15 feet deep or 150 feet deep, the bottom line is that you no longer have to depend on your eyes or traditional sonar to locate fish.

The way that I was introduced to it was in fishing professional redfish tournaments. I first started to use it in fishing the Panhandle of Florida, which is primarily a dock fishery. What I mean by a dock fishery is that everybody has a dock in their backyard, and the hardest thing is determining which docks have fish on them, when there are 1500 docks. What we did, using the big motor and the side imaging is we would putt by the dock and use the side imaging to see which docks had deeper holes. We were able to see a 5 foot bottom with a 9 foot hole near by. We could also see when there were redfish under the dock’s structure. Once we identified a good dock we would simply take the cursor, run it to thee dock and press mark, and we had a waypoint. That’s how I was introduced to it and I knew it would change the way I was going to fish. And as we started to use it in offshore applications, it really started changing that way of thinking as well.

You have been able to use it with incredible success inshore, but how can king mackerel anglers use this technology to their advantage?

I think this technology can help the kingfish guys in effectively targeting threadfins, blue runners, and other kingfish baits. Teams will be able to locate the bait with the side imaging and either set up a chum bag and sabiki, or throw a 14 foot net on the pods of bait.

You can definitely tell the size of the baits, but it’s hard to tell the difference between small blue runners and large threadfins. The tightness and mass of fish will help you in identifying what the species is, though. One of the things to remember also is that the whiter the object the more dense it is.

It’s not a complex system to learn, but you aren’t just going to turn it on and catch more bait. You need to read the manual and remember that that white toothpick looking thing under the boat is a school of blue runners hanging off a rock pile.

Is this side imaging up to the high standards that king mackerel anglers require?

Let me put it this way. The other day I was fishing with Scott Deal of Maverick Boats and Joe Neber of Contender Boats. As many of your readers know, Contender builds 36 foot open center console boats that target both the kingfish and sailfish tournament markets. Joe saw the unit for the first time on Monday when we were idling out of Roland Martin’s little yacht basin that he has in the Florida Keys. I turned it on and I showed him a side image of the water that we were idling in. It was 4 foot deep and he was shocked that he could see the prop scars from people running across this shallow water, and how truly clear the picture was. Here is Joe Neber, who is used to building huge center consoles and putting 14 inch systems on them, shocked at what this system brings to the table. When you see the side imaging you will begin to gain an understanding of the unit and how truly versatile it is.

What does this side imaging look like? Is it in color?

When you look at it it’s a picture like image of the bottom. It looks like an x-ray or ultra sound, with that blue or gray look. It’s real clear like an x-ray, but has all the moving parts of an ultra sound. It’s unbelievable.

How long does it take someone to get used to this side imaging feature?

Just like anything else, it’s an on the job training type of thing. It’s no different from buying a car. Let’s say you have a Honda this week and you go buy a Chevy Suburban next week. It doesn’t change the fact that you know how to drive. But you just need to learn to drive something a little bigger, which is different. This side imaging technology is a little different from the traditional sonars, which many people are used to. It’s not hard to operate this system. It’s just a matter of using it in the field. Once you go to a familiar wreck, reef, or jetty and take a look down you will start to understand the system and how it works.

Are the chart plotting and traditional sonar systems up to the high standards that king mackerel anglers require?

Absolutely. When I drive the boat, whether it be the Contender or the Maverick, the way I run the boat is with a split screen. I will always have that chart plotter on a split screen. It is almost scary to me, because in backcountry situations, people are now able to go to that next click of fishing that they were intimidated by. But with these plotters, it is making everything easier to understand and safer. More anglers will not feel more comfortable when traveling into the backcountry, where I primarily fish.

Some electronics are certainly harder to operate than others. How difficult is operating a Humminbird?

This system is very user friendly. You simply turn on the unit and within 30 seconds it picks up the satellite. It comes up with the side imaging first, but let’s say I want to get into my traditional sonar setting. All I have to do is press the "view" button. To get to the next screen I just press "view" again. That same button allows you to scroll through the different buttons of the machine. I can literally press "view" 7 times and go through every different feature. That is as simple as it gets.

This Humminbird 997 is the most high performance unit I have ever seen in my life for the size that it is. I really think that if some of the kingfish guys tried it that they would really be blown away.