New electronics

[DaveJ]

Ive used Lowrance for years..presently a Hook 7 gps..easy to use. A lot of my fishing friends that are way more techy than me are all Garmin guys

 

[Buckhorn]

I'm trying not to focus on the brand because everyone has a preference. Once I determine the features and size I want/can afford, I plan on getting some screen time in at bass pro and others to determine what brand feels right to me by going through the menus, etc

 

[hvyhaul]

My Graph is above your price range, but for and .....

My first and second Graphs



Same water, same moment in time. They both show the same things. Surface clutter, bottom and fish. Which one is easier to interpret? LOL

A late friend's Lowrance on Erie



My current one on Erie.

Obviously multiple brands can do what you need. The detail comes with the price.

Once you make your choice, get the unit setup for the water you will fish. Jos doesn't care if you buy from him, AO will set up anyone's FF for them without charge.

I've played with Down in the lake and Side in the river, usually just stick to Sonar.

Have fun.

 

[Ticker]

My 10 year old hummingbird 899
Shows what I need , i can see my dropshot rig falling down ,as well seeing fish deep on lake Ontario

 

[FlyingViking]

The BIGGEST thing that I found beneficial by FAR was a touch panel. I recently picked up a garmin with everything minus side imaging (I won’t need it) but the Touch panel over my last one made it sooooooo much easier and it’s got 4 “shortcut” buttons to take you to custom set-up panels

Picks up my cannonballs down to 140 feet and I’m very impressed with the resolution (differentiating individual 2 pound salmon shakers in a pod at 140 feet

 

[Reardrag]

Buy the best electronics you can afford. Don’t over think it most guys want depth,water temp,speed,and gps and they want to see bait and fish. I prefer lowrance HDS but the other brands work well too. Good luck

 

[Fshrmn4life]

Check out kijiji lots of decent units on there within your budget

 

[Wildfire]

Side scan is fun for this too

 

[Twister]

Side image and down stream not for me. That transducer is sitting in a box on a shelf. Way to finicky and not great at speed. Nobody ever said I wish I'd bought a smaller screen.

 

[done working]

I have one of these. https://fishingworld.ca/collections...n-echomap-uhd-95sv-canadian-lakevu-gt54-xdcer

Way better than the Helix 7 that I also have and the Lowrance LCX 110 that I had, which was an older unit but expensive when new. The Garmin comes with pretty good depth charts, 1ft interval, but you can make your charts as well, which is great if you are fishing around shoals, I don't think that you could beat it for the money. Sail had them on sale for $999 a week or two ago.

You can also connect it to your our outboard and display all of the diagnostics right on the finder.

 

[jammer]

My 10 year old hummingbird 899 View attachment 68854
Shows what I need , i can see my dropshot rig falling down ,as well seeing fish deep on lake Ontario View attachment 68853

No issues with your VOLTS so low??

 

[Ticker]

No issues with your VOLTS so low??

Once in a while when starting motor the motor starts fine but the fishfinder would shot off
I do have Jumper cables in the boat and can boost the main battery from the kicker battery
But so far so good
Not sure how to solve that problem, front fishfinder and fishhawk running of the kicker battery
2 battery for trolling motor so I don't really want to add another battery to the boat

 

[Fish Farmer]

There's lots of good machines out there on sale way under your price range.
Try Bill's in Hamilton.
Depth finder and GPS is all you need.

 

[Buckhorn]

Thanks for all the stories. I'm a little surprised that nobody has posted that they regularly use the side/down imaging. Forgot about Bills Bait in Hamilton, thx FF, I drive through there everyday. My wife said if I can wait till June - she will add Birthday and fathers day money to pot. maybe it was just a stall tactic....

 

[G.Mech]

I'm not saying the new technologies are a must have especially trolling deep water but they certainly are valuable for some situations. DI is amazing for seeing fish belly down on the river bottom where even the best 2D sonar has difficulty separating them from bottom. DI also makes it easy picking fish out of thick weeds or brush. Sidescan is a great tool trolling musky and finding schools of baitfish or perch. I never run either walleye fishing in Erie but I regularly use both for the other applications. Are they really necessary, no, and for many people they are of no use but it depends on what you're doing.

The other important thing is to learn how to use whatever electronics you buy effectively. Every different situation requires different settings to get the best info out of them. This takes some time and effort but there's lots of you-tube vids and on-line resources to help out. To me it is pointless having someone 'set-up' your unit unless the settings are intended for exactly how you're fishing, they need constant tweaking for fine tuning things. As somebody once told my, it doesn't matter how expensive a guitar you buy if you don't know how to play one....

 

[hvyhaul]

DI screen shot from Aug 2019.

Tough to read in bright sunshine, but all capabilities of graphs have their place and time.

 

[Octavius Brine]

No issues with your VOLTS so low??

I have the Garmin unit that has been mentioned on here already, on sale right now. I like it a lot but haven't played with other modern ones to compare much.

But on the voltage topic: the Garmin tolerates 6 - 18V, which is fantastic. I haven't tried it, but I bet it can run happily on a real weak battery that won't crank the motor. And it can tolerate the high charging voltage that some old motors produce (like mine... it can be up at 17 V when I am running at high speed).

I don't find the voltmeter on screen to be super accurate. Reads consistently 0.3V lower than a decent handheld meter, but better to be pessimistic.

 

[hvyhaul]

I have a voltage alert on my Simrad to warn me of the low voltage threshold where my Yamaha motors won't start.

Zero concern if trolling.

 

[rockin-steelhead]

If you think DI is important save your money and buy Panotics, Live Scope or Live Target

 

[Buckhorn]

That's a hard no on the 'live' imaging options (for now anyway). If I want to see fish swimming, I'll drop a camera. It's cool technology, don't get me wrong, but a little too much for me.