Mega 360

[wtailhunter57]

Can you see fish on them or just structure? Is there a big difference between early 360 and Mega?

[Wayne P.]

Yes and Yes.

MEGA 360 (bbcboards.net)

[wtailhunter57]

That’s awesome, thank you.

[SLYDoggie]

I use my Mega 360 for trolling and don't care about the bottom or structure. I'm only interested in bait balls and schools of Stripers. It can definitely be used for this purpose although you have to tweak the settings quite a bit to minimize the bottom and accentuate the fish. I find that the 10 and 12 color pallets work best on the Solix. I also keep the water column setting at 3.

In the attached picture, you can see a school of Stripers in the water column but you can also see a school between 80 and 100 ft out at about 1:00. I was able to adjust my course to go over the ones that were 80' out (in addition to the ones I was already going over) and caught fish on all 5 of the lines I had in the water. There is also a small bait ball on the left side just above the sweep line. I was getting closer to shore so that is the brighter return below the sweep line on the left.

I typically troll at 2.5 MPH and have the Mega 360 sweep speed at a setting of 4, which is a fairly fast sweep speed. The image quality does suffer a bit at this sweep speed but I'm not really interested in a pretty image... Just the fish returns.

[joe3buck3]

Slydoggie
I noticed you are running your M360 at 420-520 kHZ. Why are you not running it on the MEGA frequency? Just curious.

[TohoRookie]

Very underrated for fish marking abilities....I’m still learning but it’s put fish in the boat

[SLYDoggie]

Slydoggie
I noticed you are running your M360 at 420-520 kHZ. Why are you not running it on the MEGA frequency? Just curious.

3 reasons...

1) 455 Khz gives you significantly greater fish marking distance.
2) I don't care about the quality of Mega when just looking for fish in the water column.
3) I run Mega on my other Solix for SI and DI so having 455 Khz on the Mega 360 avoids pinging crosstalk.

I do run Mega on the 360 sometimes when over a shallower soft bottom. The lake I fish is very rocky and is a pretty deep freshwater lake... With depths up to 160' with typical depths in the 60 to 80 ft range.

[idratherbeefishin]

Yes fish show up like a white grain of rice on the mega 360 added it to mine in JANUARY and I love it . It does have its limits tho for me personally I mainly use it for anything at 25-30 ft and shallower u can definitely tell whats out in front of you .

[Marty1656]

Can you see fish on them or just structure? Is there a big difference between early 360 and Mega?

Yes and Yes I just got my mega 360 and helix ten installed a couple of weeks ago and its an absolute game changer !F8520F63-E56E-4D79-ADB4-642E5C862744.jpeg

[wtailhunter57]

So if I understand I need a g3 or g4 mega di or mega si?

[Wayne P.]

So if I understand I need a g3 or g4 mega di or mega si?

The unit to RUN it has to be a SI+ or DI+ model Helix or SOLIX.
Those are G3N/G4N Helix and G2/G3 SOLIX.

The compatible units are listed for each version of MEGA 360 on Humminbird's website in the Accessories section and FEATURES for each version.

[wtailhunter57]

What is the difference between G3 and G4?

[Wayne P.]

What is the difference between G3 and G4?

There are four generations of Helix 1-4. 4 is the current model and 1-3 are discontinued.

The only difference between G3N and G4N in the Helix 8-15 sizes is the different connection for NMEA2000. The 4 has a direct connection via adapter rather than having to use a black box and Ethernet for the connection.
The other difference is the 4 has WiFi for some unknown future use.

[josephsharpe99]

Anyone have pictures of a MEGA 360 screen vs a NON MEGA 360 screen?

[Wayne P.]

Anyone have pictures of a MEGA 360 screen vs a NON MEGA 360 screen?

Link in post #2

[fishermanwannabe]

SLY Doggie-
So on my mega 360 when I use the side imaging, the 455 khz should reach out further for schools of crappie instead of the mega setting? I find that 70 ft is the furthest 360 side imaging can see on MEGA mode, be nice if I could get 100 out of 455..

[SLYDoggie]

SLY Doggie-
So on my mega 360 when I use the side imaging, the 455 khz should reach out further for schools of crappie instead of the mega setting? I find that 70 ft is the furthest 360 side imaging can see on MEGA mode, be nice if I could get 100 out of 455..

Yes, I have successfully used it as far out as 120 ft... Not for single fish but for schools. A lot depends on the bottom depth and composition. On shallow rocky bottoms, you just can't get rid of the bottom return enough to see fish that far out. On deeper muddy bottom, it works much better.

On the attached picture, I was in Mega mode but was in 37 ft of water with a muddy bottom and was still picking up bait balls at 100' out. Again, you can definitely go further out with 455... For both bait and schools of fish. I don't use this color pallet any more as there are others which do a better job of having the bottom return not overpower things. My suggestion is to play around with the pallets which work best for your Crappie water depths. Also, I always keep my Water Column Sensitivity setting at +3 in Mega 360, DI, and SI.

Don't know if you follow him but the Technological Angler on YouTube recently posted a video about picking up fish further out and his main recommendation was to use 455 rather than Mega. His focus was Side Imaging but the same techniques apply to the Mega 360 since it is basically just a rotating SI transducer. Here is the link to the video...

[fishermanwannabe]

Hey thank you for all the info, i'll give that a try next time I'm on the water. I agree different color pallettes are the trick, I'm amazed on what I can see with the green color when I'm in deeper water.