Jason Halfen: Understanding the Science and Strategy Behind Humminbird’s Imaging Technology
Jason Halfen may not come from a traditional fishing background, but his deep knowledge of science and passion for angling have led him to become a sought-after educator in the marine electronics world.
With a Ph.D. in chemistry and nearly three decades of university-level teaching experience, Halfen has mastered the art of simplifying complex concepts. That same approach now fuels his work with Humminbird and Minn Kota, where he helps anglers understand how to effectively use cutting-edge sonar technology to catch more fish.
What started with a product development project for Rapala’s Trigger X evolved into a full-blown second career. Today, as founder of The Technological Angler, Halfen travels the country conducting in-boat training for anglers eager to make sense of their high-tech investments. Whether it’s a weekend warrior with a brand-new Explorer unit or a retiree looking to maximize the value of their dream boat, Halfen brings clarity to the often overwhelming world of sonar, imaging, and electronic fish-finding.
Making the Complex Understandable: Teaching Through Technology
The foundation of Halfen’s educational work with Humminbird mirrors his teaching philosophy: take a complicated subject and break it down into digestible pieces. Whether his clients are young tournament anglers excited about forward-facing sonar or seasoned retirees overwhelmed by their electronics suite, Jason simplifies the learning process with a logical, step-by-step approach.
A key component of Jason’s curriculum is teaching how to use side imaging, a sonar tool that has become his — and many anglers’ — go-to technology for locating structure and fish. Unlike forward-facing sonar, which garners much of the current attention, side imaging allows anglers to cover wide swaths of water efficiently and interpret subtle returns that point directly to fish locations.
Side Imaging 101: Fundamentals That Matter
Side imaging excels at helping anglers eliminate dead water and pinpoint productive areas like rock piles, weed beds, and fish-holding structures. Jason emphasizes using side imaging as a primary search tool, both from the console and the bow. However, interpreting side imaging returns correctly starts with solid boat control.
To generate the clearest images, Jason recommends driving the boat in a straight line at idle speed — ideally between 2 to 3 mph, depending on the boat. This slow, steady speed allows the sonar beam to “paint” the bottom effectively. The more times the sonar sweeps over a given target, the stronger and more detailed the return. That clarity is crucial when you’re searching for fish, which often appear as the smallest details on the screen.
Frequency, Range, and Resolution: Getting the Settings Right
One of Halfen’s first steps when configuring side imaging is setting the sonar frequency. He prefers MEGA Imaging (1.2 MHz), Humminbird’s highest available frequency, for its superior target resolution and separation. However, high frequency comes with a trade-off: shorter effective range.
For general scouting, Jason might set the side imaging range to 100 feet to each side. But when an area looks promising — say, a rock pile or isolated weed bed — he’ll tighten that range to 60 feet and make a closer pass. Reducing the range spreads less data across the same screen width, increasing the detail and making it easier to interpret fish returns or subtle structure changes.
Dialing in Sensitivity and Contrast
Once frequency and range are optimized, Jason turns his attention to sensitivity and contrast, two of the most critical display settings:
- Sensitivity controls overall image brightness. A higher sensitivity setting brightens everything, allowing anglers to pick up subtle details at the far edge of the sonar range — especially over soft bottom areas like mud or silt, where returns are naturally weaker and darker.
- Contrast determines how dark the shadows appear in the image. These sonar shadows are key to understanding what you’re looking at. For example, tall cabbage weeds in 10 feet of water will cast long sonar shadows, while shorter weeds cast small ones. The sharpness and darkness of these shadows are essential for identifying vertical differences — and even more so for spotting fish.
Interpreting Fish Returns on Side Imaging
A fish on side imaging typically shows up as a bright spot (the body reflecting the beam) paired with a dark shadow (cast on the opposite side, away from the transducer). The distance between the bright return and the shadow indicates how far the fish is suspended off the bottom. This makes contrast settings particularly important when trying to locate individual fish or schools.
Jason stresses that from rigging the unit and transducer to adjusting settings and driving technique, every part of the sonar system must work together to maximize image clarity. Why? Because in side imaging, the most important things — the fish — are also the smallest and easiest to miss.
Interpreting Fish Position with Shadows and Bright Spots
One of the most powerful features of side imaging is its ability to help anglers interpret the depth and position of fish relative to the boat. This is primarily done by observing the distance between a fish’s bright sonar return and its shadow.
If a fish is tight to the bottom, the separation between the bright spot and its shadow will be minimal. Conversely, a fish suspended higher in the water column will cast a longer sonar shadow, indicating that it’s farther off the bottom. This information allows for informed lure selection — jigs or bottom-hugging baits for fish near the bottom, mid-column presentations like crankbaits for moderately suspended fish, and even topwaters or fast-moving baits for fish riding high.
Interestingly, Jason notes that the shadow can often be more valuable than the bright return. On soft bottoms, which are inherently darker, both the fish and its shadow pop with high contrast. Muddy bays in 8 to 10 feet of water, for example, make an ideal training ground for new users trying to spot fish with side imaging.
Adjusting for Hard Bottoms: Sensitivity and Shadow Recognition
When switching from soft to hard bottom environments, such as gravel, rock, or sand, the visual dynamics change dramatically. These substrates are highly reflective, producing very bright returns on the sonar screen. As a result, the screen can appear washed out unless the sensitivity is reduced. Lowering sensitivity restores detail to the bottom composition, allowing users to discern between rocks, weeds, and subtle bottom contours.
However, hard bottoms present a new challenge: the bright spot from the fish can be difficult to see because it blends into the already bright background. In these conditions, identifying fish becomes almost entirely reliant on spotting sonar shadows.
Jason describes this as looking for “pepper flakes” sprinkled across the screen. Each small, standalone shadow — especially those not connected to structure — likely represents a fish. Even if the bright spot is obscured, the shadow confirms the fish’s presence somewhere between the boat and that dark spot.
Understanding Range and True Fish Distance
A common misconception is that the range indicated on the side imaging display is strictly lateral. In truth, that distance — say, 75 feet — is the straight-line distance from the transducer to the target, forming the hypotenuse of a triangle that includes a vertical and horizontal component.
If the fish is near the surface, that full 75 feet is lateral. But if it’s deeper, then part of that 75 feet is vertical, and the fish is closer to the boat than it appears. This understanding helps avoid overcasting or misjudging lure distance. Jason reminds anglers that “objects in sonar are closer than they appear,” especially in deep water, and evaluating the shadow’s position can confirm where in the column the fish is.
Optimizing Your View: Focusing on One Side
To enhance detail, Jason recommends tightening your range or even focusing exclusively on one side of the boat. By default, side imaging units display both the left and right returns compressed into the screen’s available pixels. If you’re only interested in one side — like when working down a shoreline or weed edge — you can change your settings to show just one side.
This effectively doubles your screen resolution for that side. Instead of compressing 100 feet of data into half the screen, you’re stretching it across the full display, significantly improving target separation. This makes small details — such as the gap between a fish and its shadow — much more visible.
Zooming in on a section of the screen can accomplish the same effect. Using the cursor to isolate an object of interest and hitting the zoom function expands the view, making it easier to interpret the image. These strategies are particularly valuable when analyzing complicated scenes with mixed structure, clutter, or multiple fish.
The Power of Color Palettes in Side Imaging
One of the most commonly overlooked, yet impactful, aspects of using side imaging effectively is color palette selection. As Jason explains, the wide range of color palettes available on Humminbird units exists for good reason: everyone sees the display differently, and various external factors like polarized sunglasses, weather conditions, and time of day can influence how well you can interpret the screen.
While there are many palettes to choose from, Jason strongly prefers the blue color palette. This preference is partly due to historical familiarity—early Humminbird units defaulted to blue—but more importantly, it allows users to crank up sensitivity without blowing out the screen with too much brightness. The blue palette is naturally lower in contrast and softer in tone, which helps highlight subtle fish returns without overwhelming nearby detail, especially close to the boat.
Conversely, popular options like amber, now often set as the default, offer higher brightness and are excellent at cutting through glare. However, they can become overly bright when using high sensitivity, which can obscure fine detail and fish returns. Jason’s approach when working with clients is to adjust each palette individually, fine-tuning sensitivity and contrast to match the environment and the angler’s preferences. He emphasizes that settings don’t always transfer cleanly from one palette to another—each requires its own optimization.
The Two Most Important Tools: Side Imaging and Mapping
Despite having access to every sonar and mapping tool available, Jason makes it clear: side imaging is his number one tool, followed very closely by his mapping software. Everything else—360 Imaging, forward-facing sonar, or 2D sonar—has its place, but side imaging and mapping are the foundation of his approach.
Jason shares a great example from a recent trip to Hawk Lake Lodge in Ontario. While hiking into a remote out-lake with no existing map data, he brought along a Helix 9 unit rigged on an ice shuttle with a lithium battery. Not only did he use side imaging to locate fish along the shoreline, but he also built his own custom contour map on the fly with AutoChart Live. That ability to both see structure and locate fish in real time makes side imaging and digital mapping an unbeatable combination.
Simplifying Your Boat Setup
With so much technology at their fingertips, many anglers struggle with how to configure their boat displays efficiently. Jason’s advice is straightforward: dedicate one screen to side imaging and one to your map. Whether you run a tiller or a console setup, having full-time access to both views allows you to stay fully aware of structure, fish location, and boat orientation—without constantly switching screens.
He describes his own setup: a dedicated Apex 13 unit for side imaging, and a second screen showing his chart full-time. Occasionally, he’ll switch over briefly to down imaging if something appears directly beneath the boat in the side imaging’s water column, but 95% of the time he’s locked in on that side imaging view, dropping waypoints, analyzing edges, and uncovering fish-holding structure—all by driving in a straight line.
Practice, Adjust, and Adapt
A key takeaway from Jason’s philosophy is that side imaging is not a set-it-and-forget-it tool. Success comes from actively engaging with the unit, tweaking settings like sensitivity and contrast depending on water conditions, bottom composition, depth, and even water clarity. For example, what works perfectly in a shallow muddy bay may not apply at all when transitioning to deep rocky points.
He encourages anglers to invest time into learning the nuances of their unit. That doesn’t mean sacrificing valuable fishing time—it can be as simple as exploring the graph during a snack break or after the bite dies down. Every hour spent interpreting sonar in varied conditions builds pattern recognition, giving you the confidence to make accurate decisions on the fly.
Matching Settings to the Situation
Jason also addresses a common misconception: that once you’ve dialed in your side imaging, you’re good to go everywhere. Not so. Every situation requires reevaluation. Water clarity, bottom composition, and depth all affect image quality. Anglers must be willing to press buttons and make adjustments in real time to maintain optimal image quality.
The good news? Once you know what to look for—tiny fish shadows, subtle structure differences, and contrast variations—achieving excellent sonar images becomes second nature. With practice, side imaging becomes a real-time underwater camera, giving you a decisive advantage.
Mastering Core Settings: Frequency, Range, Sensitivity, and Contrast
At the heart of Jason’s sonar training philosophy is a refreshingly simple truth: you don’t need to master every advanced setting to be effective. As long as you understand and can confidently adjust frequency, range, sensitivity, and contrast, you can fine-tune your sonar for nearly any situation on the water.
Jason encourages anglers to experiment freely with these settings. If your screen becomes unreadable, just hit Restore Defaults. Contrary to common fear, this action won’t erase your waypoints or map data—it simply resets your sonar’s display settings. Many of Jason’s students jot down key sensitivity and contrast values for different bottom compositions—muddy basins versus hard gravel flats, for instance—either in a notebook or their phone’s notes app.
The idea is to learn by doing. Over bright hard bottom? If your sensitivity is too high, the display will look washed out. In dark, muddy water? You’ll likely need more sensitivity to pick up subtle details. The key takeaway: adjust, observe, and learn when the pressure’s off.
Introducing Forward-Facing Sonar: New Challenges and New Solutions
Transitioning from side imaging to forward-facing sonar (FFS), such as Humminbird’s MEGA Live, introduces a new set of challenges—particularly in shallow water with heavy particulate matter, like tree pollen, algae, or sediment. These conditions scatter the high-frequency sonar beam used by FFS and create a noisy, cluttered display.
Forward-facing sonar uses multiple beams simultaneously, not just one narrow ping. Some of the sonar energy returns directly to the transducer (what creates the image), but much of it reflects off the surface or bottom, especially if those surfaces are hard. This creates a “noisy environment” where clutter and reflections degrade image clarity.
Leveraging Auto Sensitivity and Contrast in MEGA Live
Fortunately, Humminbird’s MEGA Live now includes Auto Sensitivity and Contrast. When activated, the transducer samples its surroundings and automatically adjusts for the clearest image possible—particularly useful during messy, high-particle conditions. While this feature often produces a great base image, Jason emphasizes the importance of fine-tuning using sensitivity and contrast offsets.
For example:
- If your lure is too small to see clearly with Auto mode alone, try increasing sensitivity slightly to bring out those weak returns.
- If your screen still feels too cluttered, try increasing contrast to clean up noise—but be aware that high contrast may suppress weak returns, like small lures.
Understanding Sensitivity and Contrast in MEGA Live
The roles of sensitivity and contrast in MEGA Live differ slightly from side imaging:
- Sensitivity in MEGA Live is about revealing weak returns, not brightness. Think of it like turning up the stereo—suddenly, you hear quiet instruments you never noticed.
- Contrast works to differentiate strong returns from nothing. Higher contrast darkens the background and brightens objects, effectively filtering out noise—but potentially masking faint returns like a crappie jig or small swimbait.
In practice, Jason uses contrast as his primary noise control tool. But when targeting fish with small lures, he’s willing to live with a bit of “sparkle”—those weak sonar returns—because they help him keep track of his bait.
Dynamic Contrast: Tailoring Image Quality to the Task
Jason’s first step in tuning MEGA Live is setting the Dynamic Contrast mode, which determines how the unit handles weak returns:
- High Dynamic Contrast: Best for a clean display. It filters out many weak signals, leaving a stark, readable image with clearly defined targets.
- Low Dynamic Contrast: Ideal for lure tracking. Keeps more weak returns visible, which makes it easier to follow small baits in real time.
- Balanced: A middle ground between the two.
This is the setting that sets the tone for everything else. If your goal is to observe fish-lure interaction, use Low Dynamic Contrast. If you’re scouting structure and fish placement, High Dynamic Contrast may be better.
How Forward-Facing Sonar is Really Used: Two Distinct Applications
Jason highlights a critical distinction in how anglers approach forward-facing sonar (FFS) like MEGA Live 2: some use it to track lures and monitor fish behavior, while others use it to identify targets and cast efficiently—without worrying about tracking every second of a retrieve.
If your goal is simply to know where to throw, high dynamic contrast is ideal. It delivers a cleaner, less cluttered image, helping you pick out fish and structure quickly. But if you’re interested in tracking your bait in real-time—watching how a fish responds, for instance—you’ll want to select low dynamic contrast, which retains more weak returns (like a small jig or plastic) at the cost of a noisier image.
Jason’s real-world use case often falls into the first category: he uses FFS primarily to identify casting targets—rocks, weed clumps, or fish—then fires in that direction without needing to follow the lure the whole way back. This makes fishing faster, more efficient, and especially effective in windy conditions or on spot lock when boat orientation is constantly shifting.
The Challenge of Tracking a Lure
Tracking a bait continuously with forward-facing sonar may sound easy—but in reality, it’s one of the most difficult things to master. The narrow 20-degree beam width means the lure must stay within a very limited cone from cast to retrieve.
Jason’s advice: start close. Practice short lobs just a boat length away, confirm the lure impact, and work your way up to long casts. Even under ideal, calm conditions, it’s common for baits to wander in and out of the beam due to wind, line drag, and lure behavior.
For instance, while vertical jigging for lake trout at Hawk Lake Lodge, Jason discovered that his tube jig corkscrewed on the fall—something he’d never realized using traditional sonar. That type of nuanced observation is only possible with forward-facing sonar, but it also illustrates how easily lures can drift out of the beam, especially if line angle or lure weight isn’t considered.
Practice Makes Proficiency
Much like side imaging, effective use of FFS requires practice. Every mounting setup—whether on a trolling motor or a separate pole—introduces slight variations in how the beam is projected and perceived. A small adjustment in direction, a half-rod-length difference in casting angle, or the natural movement of your boat can change whether your bait stays in view.
Jason encourages anglers to learn their equipment intimately, even down to understanding which direction your transducer is slightly biased due to mount placement. Knowing whether you need to aim slightly left or right of your directional arrow is often the difference between seeing your bait—or missing it entirely.
The Conservation Conversation: Ethical Considerations in Tech Use
As the conversation wraps, Jason doesn’t shy away from the ethics and conservation implications of forward-facing sonar and other fishing technologies. He acknowledges the enormous benefits these tools provide—particularly in helping anglers locate fish efficiently—but also raises concerns.
From ice fishing for panfish to trolling for muskies, increased efficiency can lead to increased pressure, which doesn’t always translate to sustainable outcomes. For example, winter panfish targeted with FFS in deep basins may suffer from barotrauma, even when released. Small groups of anglers can now stay on top of schools for hours, moving with the fish using triangulated sonar views, creating sustained harvest or catch-and-release mortality even with “light” limits.
Jason admits he holds a “mixed relationship” with FFS. As both a product educator and user, he sees its tremendous value but also recognizes its potential for overuse—especially when combined with other powerful tools like side imaging, mapping, and AutoChart Live.
The Ethical Responsibility of Using Forward-Facing Sonar
As the discussion wrapped up, Jason offered a thoughtful and honest assessment of the growing concern surrounding forward-facing sonar (FFS) and its impact on fish populations. While technology like MEGA Live 2 undoubtedly improves angler efficiency, its potential ecological consequences—particularly on vulnerable species—should not be ignored.
Jason makes it clear: with great power comes great responsibility. He points to species like muskie, an apex predator with low population density and long growth cycles. When anglers use FFS to “sharpshoot” individual muskies—especially during sensitive periods—the impact can be deeply negative. He references Leech Lake, where muskie mortality related to angling pressure and environmental stressors has become increasingly visible, including incidents of dead fish being reported after high-tech targeting.
The message? Just because we can doesn’t mean we always should.
Mindful Angling in a New Era
Rather than calling for sweeping regulation—an area that’s complex and often avoided by management agencies—Jason advocates for a more mindful, self-regulating approach. He encourages anglers to develop awareness around their use of technology and its potential harm:
- Seeing deep fish? Maybe avoid targeting walleyes or crappies in 40–50 feet of water where barotrauma is likely.
- Spotting summer muskies in deep basins? Consider letting them be.
- Noticing behavioral changes? Be aware that even from 30–40 feet, fish may feel your presence, whether from sonar, shadow, or hull noise.
This isn’t about giving up tools. It’s about using them responsibly. With FFS, anglers can now follow fish in real time, erasing much of the mystery that once defined the sport. Unlike traditional sonar technologies—side imaging, down imaging, 2D sonar—which show where a fish was, forward-facing sonar shows you where a fish is now, and even lets you follow them wherever they go.
That level of real-time tracking fundamentally changes the dynamic between angler and fish. The fish no longer has the ability to escape by swimming away—because the angler can simply follow.
A Call for Balance
Jason doesn’t frame FFS as “good” or “bad.” Instead, he emphasizes the need for conscientious decision-making. Whether you’re guiding clients, fishing tournaments, or just enjoying a weekend on the water, it’s essential to recognize that this is a new chapter in angling—and it demands new habits.
From panfish to predators, all species are now more vulnerable to pressure. Responsible anglers must weigh their decisions—sometimes choosing not to chase, not to drop a waypoint, or not to cast.
Because sometimes, the best use of technology is knowing when not to use it.
Final Thoughts: Training Is the Key
Throughout the conversation, one theme remained consistent: knowledge unlocks the power of technology, and training unlocks the knowledge. Whether it’s fine-tuning side imaging, adjusting beam angle in MEGA Live, or learning to identify a sonar shadow from a fish return, education is what turns sonar from confusing to intuitive—and from exploitative to responsible.
Jason Halfen’s work with The Technological Angler continues to help anglers across the continent unlock their electronics with purpose, precision, and responsibility. If you’re looking to become not only more effective on the water, but also more thoughtful in your approach, investing in education is the best upgrade you can make.
Thanks to Jason for sharing his insights. For more educational content, training opportunities, and sonar strategy, visit The Technological Angler and continue the journey toward mastering your electronics the right way.
