[Guest]

will be getting a new unit for the front trolling motor. i am looking at Garmin's 400 model, mostly coz it's dual beam transducer, and the 4" screen. can't afford a higher end model. this would be used for lake fishing mostly. any comments either way...

 

[Guest]

Well, now i'm not so sure, KVD says, "do not skimp on your electronics ", but not working, you have 2nd thoughts on dropping $800 or so...

 

[tcfisherman]

hey ghost, checkout tiger gps.com, this is a great web site for sonars, you can buy a rebilt unit with same waranty as new....................chris

 

[Jeffonc]

No personal experience with the garmins - very good reputation and faithful following.

The way I see it:

how much you fish
+ how much you rely on the finder
+ how much disposable income
========================
how much you can afford to pay

KVD fishes all the time, relies on his electronics for his livelihood, and he's rich AND sponsored (not to mention younger, healthier and better looking than me too - I hate that!). Makes that equation a lot easier for him than for most of the rest of us. But good for him - he's earned every bit of it. Not the easiest way in the world to make a good living. To his credit he may also be saying "Don't spend $49 when you can afford and benefit from $200/$400 worth of finder".

$400 is getting you a lot of technology that you might not have been able to buy for twice that price just a couple years ago. Hard to call that "skimping" unless you have a forest of money trees in the backyard...

Let us know what you wind up with.

 

[Scott Hobbs]

Get the best electronic you can afford. If all you can muster is 100 bucks then get that unit. Any unit, I mean any unit this day and age will provide a lot of bottom structure, depths, temperature gagues all in one nice unit.

Use the one you can get by on and be happy with the way you voted.

95% of the time I use my unit to tell me how deep the water is, not to find fish, but to tell me how deep the bottom is or either to show me some bottom contour, struture on or near the bottom. Most of my fishing is done kinda shallow.

I fish this one area and I like to stay between 6-9 feet of water, if I go into 5 foot I move back to deeper water, if I move or drift to 10 foot or deeper I move back to 9. This is a zone in this particular lake that I have found to be great for taking large, extremely large shellcracker (up to 2 pound and maybe a little better) and x-tra large 1 to 1 1/2 pound size bream.

Yep you might be right, you can catch more of them closer to the bank, but those are usually hand size, these I'm talking about are bohemith size and would rather fight and land one of these than 10 handsize.


I have used it on occasion to find fish in deeper water and have found them and caught some fish off of dropoffs or cliffs. Just hate fishing all that deep water. Guess I'm just a swamp man that likes to fish shallow flooded willows and bullrushes and lillypads.

Hold tight fish on

Tight lines <*)))))>{

 

[sundrop]

I decided bottom contour, depth and surface temp was enough for me. So bought a new, packaged Eagle 250ds fisheasy. Dual beam, grayscale with temp. It is a discontinued model but finders are like everything else, constantly changing or being revamped into a new case to spur sales as the "new" model. $127.45 delivered with full factory warranty. Eagle is a good brand (made by Lowrance) and all I found online was good reviews.

 

[Topsail Angler]

I have a garmin unit, a different model than the one you are looking at but I have been very pleased with the performance of the unit. It's pretty easy to use and the user interface is pretty much the same across all the Garmin products which makes it nice come upgrade time.

 

[Jeffonc]

I'll add that I've had Lowrance X-something (low-end, came with and sold with the last boat) and a Humminbird 535. Never had a color unit. In order of things I look for most: bottom depth, bottom contours (points, humps, drops), bait balls and concentrations of suspended fish at particular depths. Never deeper than 40 feet that I can recall. Never really thought I was missing much by not having color, but I do like having more pixels. The H535 was about $139. Its bolted to a $750 kayak, so my ff to boat cost ratio (about 1:5) makes it seem like a much more expensive unit.

 

[Topsail Angler]

I think the deal with color is the displayed information is suppose to be easier to see in bright sunlight. Otherwise I doubt you would miss much with monochrome.

 

[Dave B.]

Just a suggestion.. Eagle finders are a excellent lower cost unit. Not cheap (built by Lowrance), but have the alot of the higher end features minus the price tag..

I wouldnt over look Eagle finders. Excellent prices on their gray scale and color units!

 

[Guest]

after some homework, i found out my Minn kota is 4 years old, thus it only is capable of a single beam from the transducer. So i went with the Hummingbird 535, a large 5" screen and high def., even though it's gray scale, it should work real well under that trolling motor. $145 shipped...
i guess i can start saving for the other sonar/gps...
The last couple of days i have removed the old hull #'s and put on my new NC #'s., license plate, did some maintenance, cleaning, etc. I'm expecting my lake maps, H535, and adapter cable to the Minnkota in a couple of days. Save some fish for me...

 

[Topsail Angler]

Sound like you are getting close to having her on the water and rigged for fishing!

 

[Guest]

yep, it's more or less ready... i'm thinking some rod holders are in order.
i only had one, as most of my fishing was Vertical Jigging, up front, on the trolling motor, while i fished two poles.... i think i'll be doing alot of drop-shotting