05-17-2009, 01:21 PM
[font "Times New Roman"]This is my opinion and my opinion only, it is worth only what you paid for it. [/font]
[font "Times New Roman"] My son Jacob has a Humminbird 110 Buddy that he has used a few times now. I just got an Eagle 300 cuda. Yesterday I had the chance to compare them side by side. [/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The water was mostly clear. It was colored a little on the greenish brown side. It has some clumps of slimy green moss next to the bank where the wind had blown it. That moss was not away from the bank very far that I could tell. We were in water that ranged from 4 feet deep to 40 feet.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"] First thing I noticed was the cuda showed a ton of fish about 3 to 4 feet down on fish ID. Like another guy said in a different thread “ I should have been kicking them”. The Buddy just showed the bottom and contour and a fish here and there. From the times we used the Buddy before, I have seen Jacob see fish on his screen in this case crappie, send a jig down and catch crappie. I have seen him do this many times so I am sure his Buddy works well.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]We kicked along a little more and the screens looked similar for contour, temp, and depth. The difference was the cuda showed sometimes up to 25 or 30 fish on the screen at one time. I knew something was not right. So I decided to play with the sensitivity. I adjusted it up and down. About all I could tell was different was the fish on the screen got smaller, and the bottom changed color. So I turned fish ID off, and set everything back to automatic tried it a while that way. I never saw the fish arches but at the same time the Buddy was not showing much for fish either. I even messed with the chart speed to see if that did anything.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"] Then the thing that bothers me the most. I was in about 20 foot of water, and the depth range at the bottom of the scale said 40. All of a sudden I was seeing the bottom range bounce from 40 feet to 140 feet. Some times it would bounce to 240 feet. When it did that the screen would start a fresh screen so I had these very thin screens going across one right after another. When you looked at the screen it was just a mess of vertical lines.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"] I manually set the depth range and by doing that it stopped the thin screens I had before, but now the screen seemed to have breaks of missing segments in the middle of them. When this happened I moved away from the bank in the steep canyon and moved out into open water and out of the canyon. It seemed to be working better in the deeper water but it still showed fish that the Buddy said was not there, and we were not catching any fish.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"] While it may be possible that I was picking up some very small bait fish with the cuda 300, and the Buddy was not see them, this was the way it went all day long. The Cuda showed fish and Buddy didn’t and we were not catching much for fish. Now when the Buddy said there were fish we caught fish. Again we didn’t get many that day but the Buddy didn’t show a ton of on the screen all the time. [/font]
[font "Times New Roman"] My final thoughts. One day is not a good “test” I feel. I will be trying it more to see how it does. When comparing the two finders I feel that the 300 Cuda was accurate with giving the contour of the bottom. It was also accurate with the temp, and depth. I am no expert at fish finders, in fact I have only actually used only these two fish finders.[/font]
Maybe what I am seeing is a problem with how I have the transducer mounted. Or the way I am setting it up. I am not sure what the problem is but as a whole I am going to say the 110 fishing buddy so far has been a better fish finder. As I get more used to the 300 I will have a better idea what it is like. I hope it starts to do better. Ron
[signature]
[font "Times New Roman"] My son Jacob has a Humminbird 110 Buddy that he has used a few times now. I just got an Eagle 300 cuda. Yesterday I had the chance to compare them side by side. [/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The water was mostly clear. It was colored a little on the greenish brown side. It has some clumps of slimy green moss next to the bank where the wind had blown it. That moss was not away from the bank very far that I could tell. We were in water that ranged from 4 feet deep to 40 feet.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"] First thing I noticed was the cuda showed a ton of fish about 3 to 4 feet down on fish ID. Like another guy said in a different thread “ I should have been kicking them”. The Buddy just showed the bottom and contour and a fish here and there. From the times we used the Buddy before, I have seen Jacob see fish on his screen in this case crappie, send a jig down and catch crappie. I have seen him do this many times so I am sure his Buddy works well.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]We kicked along a little more and the screens looked similar for contour, temp, and depth. The difference was the cuda showed sometimes up to 25 or 30 fish on the screen at one time. I knew something was not right. So I decided to play with the sensitivity. I adjusted it up and down. About all I could tell was different was the fish on the screen got smaller, and the bottom changed color. So I turned fish ID off, and set everything back to automatic tried it a while that way. I never saw the fish arches but at the same time the Buddy was not showing much for fish either. I even messed with the chart speed to see if that did anything.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"] Then the thing that bothers me the most. I was in about 20 foot of water, and the depth range at the bottom of the scale said 40. All of a sudden I was seeing the bottom range bounce from 40 feet to 140 feet. Some times it would bounce to 240 feet. When it did that the screen would start a fresh screen so I had these very thin screens going across one right after another. When you looked at the screen it was just a mess of vertical lines.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"] I manually set the depth range and by doing that it stopped the thin screens I had before, but now the screen seemed to have breaks of missing segments in the middle of them. When this happened I moved away from the bank in the steep canyon and moved out into open water and out of the canyon. It seemed to be working better in the deeper water but it still showed fish that the Buddy said was not there, and we were not catching any fish.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"] While it may be possible that I was picking up some very small bait fish with the cuda 300, and the Buddy was not see them, this was the way it went all day long. The Cuda showed fish and Buddy didn’t and we were not catching much for fish. Now when the Buddy said there were fish we caught fish. Again we didn’t get many that day but the Buddy didn’t show a ton of on the screen all the time. [/font]
[font "Times New Roman"] My final thoughts. One day is not a good “test” I feel. I will be trying it more to see how it does. When comparing the two finders I feel that the 300 Cuda was accurate with giving the contour of the bottom. It was also accurate with the temp, and depth. I am no expert at fish finders, in fact I have only actually used only these two fish finders.[/font]
Maybe what I am seeing is a problem with how I have the transducer mounted. Or the way I am setting it up. I am not sure what the problem is but as a whole I am going to say the 110 fishing buddy so far has been a better fish finder. As I get more used to the 300 I will have a better idea what it is like. I hope it starts to do better. Ron
[signature]
