Fishing

Just came in off my little lake about an hour ago...6 bass this morning, 3 weighing about the same 2.2 lb range.....keep thinking I might find more fish if I had one of those sonars on my FishCat 4......love the tubing experience.

So if you had $150 (maybe stretching to $200, due to the close proximity to Father's Day), what would you buy?

I'll tell you a little about my favorite Wichita, KS urban lake (where I was this morning)....it is a whopping 10 acres of surface area (small). Almost endless structure near the shores, mostly fallen logs, trees grown out over the water, not much in the way of weeds (yet). Depth is shallow, quick drop offs to about 4-5 feet, about 3 feet from the shore. If I were to guess at the depth in the deepest part of the lake, I would say it couldn't top 15 ft (could be wrong).

I'm pretty sure I want something that looks sideways, seeing how I am usually in less than 6 feet of water.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

DJ

If you can find it (since it has been discontinued) the Humminbird 575 does the sideways views. I got mine, a display model, about two months ago at Cabela's bargain cave for about $215. As far as I know, there isn't anything else in the sub-$300 range that can do this. And unfortunately, Humminbird didn't come out with a replacement for the 575.

I had the 565 (now replaced with the 570) for a couple months prior and like that as well. I upgraded to the 575 because I wanted the sideways view. I don't know if it has helped me catch that much more fish, but I like having the extra information, especially when I am jigging for crappie in a boat slip or similar situations.

Good luck on your research.

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I use the Humminbird 575 also and it's a nice finder. The 575 and 565 have been discontinued and replaced with the 550, 560, 570. If any of them are like the 565 you can't go wrong and all are under $200.

I think that the Humminbird Fishin Buddy has the side finder feature. At least it used to.

Yes it still does, I believe there are at least two of them that have it.

Albinotrout
Fishing and trains...what else is there? BASEBALL.......

Yes the Humingbird fishing Buddy 120 has side finder and seems to work real well ($167 @ Sportsmans)

I have an older fishin buddy III that has the side finder that works ok as well. I now have the Humminbird 565 and have used in on shallow waters and it has worked very well. Now I need to test it on some deeper reservoirs and see how it works out.

Albinotrout
Fishing and trains...what else is there? BASEBALL.......

I don't think you will be disappointed on its results in deep water.

So, a couple of weeks ago I opted for a Humminbird Fishin' Buddy 120. I have had it out about 3 times now, and each time I have had weirdness

Everything seems to be fine for a while, showing accurate depth (probably) and structure, maybe some "fish" with the sidefinder. Not too long into the session I will look over and there is black all over the screen, and it shows me in 215 feet of water, sometimes shallower at 130 ish feet. I know that this is ridiculously inaccurate, as I was just moments before in 7 feet of water. This lake couldn't top 20 feet in depth. Then a vertical line will appear on the chart, a wall of black on the chart and then it just shuts down. Sometimes I can't even get it to reboot. Until I let it sit idle a while....then I restart it and get the same symptoms, but sooner.

I was boxing it up to take it back from whence it came and as an afterthought I decided to test each of the six AA batteries that it requires. With a multimeter I tested VDC and each measured about 1.47 volts.....except one! It actually measured -200 mV. All had 0 ohms of resistance except same said battery which was measuring about 24 ohms. Looking at the battery, it appeared to have some dry leakage on the negative end...mind you this was a brand new battery.

I have a really limited knowledge of electronic devices....can anyone tell me if the symptoms I was experiencing could be a result of this bad battery? I am going to try it out soon to see if replacing that battery will yield better results. I can take the unit back if not, as I bought it locally with a service plan.

Next question, in my limited use of the 120, I think I already hate the 2 foot fixed shaft that sticks down into the water. Anybody ever hear of dismantling one of these units and mounting the transducer in some alternate fashion? I can only guess that the shaft just houses wiring that goes to the transducer on the bottom end. I'm sure that would void the warranty and would not fall under the service plan. It would be interesting to see if one could eliminate the 2 ft shaft, nonetheless.

Currently, I have it mounted on a piece of 1 1/4" PVC with a union, so I can quickly turn the shaft up out of the water so it is parallel with the side of the Fishcat 4. See picture. If anyone has any other suggestions, please offer them. No laughing at my first PVC creation..... I am already rethinking it. Notice I have two other unions so I can rotate the pole holders 360 degrees. Really handy when heading into that bunch of trees I just hung a lure in....

Thanks,

DJ

I know the older ones did that when the screen got to hot. Make sure that the backlite is off and that you don't have it directly sitting in the sun. Put new batteries in and see what happens. I think the battery may have something to do with it as well. I always kept a second set of batteries on the toon with me for incase the first ones died. Came in handy a couple of times when the batteries did go caput.

Albinotrout
Fishing and trains...what else is there? BASEBALL.......

Changing the one bad battery fixed the problem! The FB 120 works well now