sonar advice needed

[lundfishing]

I am sure this comes up all the time but i am kind of new to the site. I have a new 14' heavy duty boat and would like to get a good fish finder in the 4 to 500$ range i dont need gps. I am very new to sonar but i fish a lot. what do you guys suggest ?......
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[TheFishSlayer]

Well I have an eagle Fish easy POS that came with the boat . Aparrently there is a 300 ft deep trench in Willard. Wouldn't recommend.
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[tlspyder13]

First let me say welcome to the site. Second if you could post a little more about just what you might be looking for in your finder. The brands or models you have looked at already might get some more responses. Also does it matter if it has color or not. Stuff like that.
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[fsh4fun05]

I'm a Lowrance guy so I'm a little one sided so I would recommend an Elite-5x. With technology you get what you pay for and anything in your price range you should be able to get a nice finder no matter what brand you choose.
There are a couple options to think about-color, size, and if it does come with gps (I think hummingbird has an internal gps which is cool). GPS is nice because you can go back to that one spot dead on.
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[feeeshon]

deffinately stick with lowrance.
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[flygoddess]

I have tried all brands but I vote for Humminbird.
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[mike4cobra]

You can get a Lowrance HDS5x brand new on Ebay right now for around or under 500. The adavantage your gonna have with the HDS over the Elite is the broad band sonar processor, and trust me, the differences are amazing. They have Humminbird beat in both 2D an Side Scan hands down. Humminbird cant come close to Lowrance's broadband technology right now. Target seperation and bottom detail is second to none with the broadband. Oh, on a side note, Hummingbirds down scan is a joke, way to 'bandaid' it guys[crazy]. But definately check ebay, I picked up one of my HDS5s (with gps) for 621 bucks with no tax and free shipping, brand new in box. Theres a store selling the structure scan on there right now for 589.99 with no tax and free shipping. That another point, if you ever did want to up grade, your could with the HDS5x but not the Elite and definately not the Humminbirds in that price range.
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[PACKFAN]

I agree with M4C, Lowrance is the only way to go, I run two on my boat and have for years, never had a problem. Could be just good luck with my units I don't know. I have also run Eagles (owned by Lowrance) and haven't had any problems, I still use one for ice fishing that is over 20 years old, it has been thru hell and keeps on ticking. What ever brand you choose you should be able to find a good unit for $500.
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[walleyebob]

I run a color Lowrance with GPS on the console and separate Eagle GPS and sonar units in the bow. I've had four Eagle sonar units, one Garmin and two Lowrance units.
They have all been good sonars for the prices paid.
My next finder will be another Lowrance. They seem to be the best for what I do.
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[Troll]

I'm a Humminbird guy. I've had 2 Lowrances and a Garmin, Furuno and Rayethon. I started with a "Bird Trap" flasher and owned through the paper graph phase.

The best finder in the world may tell you there are fish there, but it won't catch them for you.

So, Power- measured in watts. nothing but wats matters when judging power, be it blenders, soldering iorns or electric cars. Watts is the botom line. Buy as many watts as you can. Some companies measure in Peak to Peak watts, some in RMS wattts. More watts means more punch power and netter depth power.
Frequency- The hertz that the signal is shot out of the transducer at. Frequency relates to beam width. Beam width (called cone angle) is how much of the bottom your signal picks up. If your fishing in shallow water you will want a wide cone so that your not looking at a 1' circle of bottom while in 6' of water. A 90 degree cone will show you a 3' circle while in 6' of water and a 45' circle in 90' of water.
Most modern units operate with several selectable frequencies so that while underway you can tune your machine to what you need to see at that time for what you are doing.
Many units transducers are actually several transducers operating at different frequencies all at the same time. The return signals are fed back into the units computer and it uses that data to make the picture you see. That's how they can tell you which side of the boat the fish is on.
Screen- Height is detail, width is time. The number of pixels in height is how much screen the unit has to draw your picture from the surace to it's bottom depth seting. If you have 120 pixels and are set at 30' you have a pixel for each 4" of coverage. If you have 360 verticle pixels at 30' setting you have 1 pixel per inch. This leads to seperation and what the computer can draw for you.
You want lots of verticle pixels.
Width is time. the farthest line of pixels to the right of your scren is real time. That is the signal being returned and drawn. as the next signal is recieved the farthest line is redrawn one row to the left and the new data is drawn farthest to the right. so on infinitem, until the screen width is met then the information goes off the screen. History is the rows of pixels from the second row to the last. If you look away and then back you can still see what happened for a short time while you looked away.
Color or B&W? No question in your price range, go with color. In B&W units various levels of grey are used to display the density of the interuption to the signal. Rock is more dense than weeds so they show up as light grey stands with a black line below them. Color does it using different bright colors and this makes it easier to see he walleye laying 3" of the botom in the weeds because there is a green spot in the middle of the yellow above the red.
To recap, power? You want it. Number of Pixel height? Very important. Color? Yes.
Not wanting GPS makes me think you already have one that you will have on board, nice, but having one built in will be easier to use and help you to get back to that downed tree you saw on the screen a minute ago. I would recommend it. They are also a help when your fogged in at Bird Island and want to get back to Provo Boat harbor. You just follow the line you made on the way out. The unit will calculate time of arrival by tracking your true speed.

Lots more to talk about, it takes a while to learn your way around the unit you choose. Not to worry, go to Sportsmans and Cabelas and look them over, pick one in your price range, learn to use it and you'll be happy.
Last, look at the mounting system. Some have a base that you plug the unit into, some have seperate wires to be connected in the back. I use my unit on 2 different boats and have a cooler set up for travel and ice fishing. This makes mounting system important to me.
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[mactuna]

Good choice
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[PACKFAN]

You trying to sell me one or the guy that opened the thread?[crazy]
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[lundfishing]

WOW!! I knew all of you could help me thank you. I think what i have learned is to just get one in that price range. and than learn it up and down while it is hard for me to spend that much i just need to do it and than learn how to use it. i have already taken the boat out ten or so times this year and could have been learning to use it.. I think i will go with the lowrance seems they had the most votes now i just need to decide on elite or hd once again thank you .
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[walleyebob]

If you buy a Lowrance you don't even have to be on the water to learn all the buttons and how to use it. You can download the demo to your computer and play with it at home. I have the demos downloaded so I can check moon phases and sunrise/sunset anytime at the computer.
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[DallanC]

Excellent advice already given. Power is your primary consideration... my Humminbird is 8000 watts and resolves things very well, several orders of magnitude better than my old crappy Eagle.

I went with a different model Humminbird that has 5 different transducer "beams" shooting out in a fan under the boat. Because of this, its able to detect fish within a specific beam and show it properly in relation ship to the boat, as well as idenify the depth under each beam, and draw it out in true 3d. It works well and I'm happy with it, the downside though is that when stationary you are only reading a "slice" of the water column below you. Its fine for trolling though. A larger single beam cone will show you any fish within a radius below the boat.

I also like GPS capabilities and use them alot more than I first thought I would.


-DallanC
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[idahoron]

DallanC are you the same one from MM? If so How are you doing? Ron
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