Bass anglers love their real-time imagers, inshore anglers love their side-scanners, and these days more and more offshore anglers are adapting 360-fishfinders. The CSH8LMK2 360 Omni made by Furuno, with thousands of feet of range, has always been considered the pinnacle for all-around viewing offshore pelagics and it’s become more and more common on big boats in search of tunas and billfish. But it’s also limited to big boats. Really big boats, since it requires installing a basketball-sized transducer that retracts into a tunnel inside the boat. Then there’s cost to consider, since hardware and installation is likely to run north of the $100,000 mark. If your boat isn’t a yacht of 50-plus feet forget about it.
Wait a sec – not so fast. You may not be able to get omniscient on an everyman’s center console, but nowadays you do have some additional options to start peering 360-degrees around the boat. The first and most common takes a page out of the playbook those bass guys use. Real-time and 360-degree imaging is now available for saltwater rigs that carry trolling motors, which will get you views out to about 350′. You can also rig real-time imaging via a separate dedicated transducer deployed on a pole mount (like Humminbird’s Mega 360 Universal). Is it worth it for an offshore angler? Let’s turn the question around: the next time you approach a rig, would you find it helpful to know exactly which strut all the fish are hovering around? When you approach a weed paddy, would it be helpful to know that all the mahi are 200′ away on the other side? We thought so.
Another option is “searchlight” sonar, which sends out rotational pings at 360 degrees. These don’t have quite the range (about half) nor speed of an Omni (it can take up to 15 seconds to paint the all-around view) but they’re still pretty darn impressive, cost a fraction of the Omni, are offered by several different manufacturers, and require half as much space.
So, do you “need” 360-degree fish-finding capabilities offshore? Of course not – most of us have been fishing without it as long as we’ve been fishing. But, will it help you catch more fish? Everyone who you speak with that’s used it will say “yes” without hesitation. Draw your own conclusion… and then get ready to draw down that bank account.