new fish finder

[Fixit]

ive had it with my standard horizon plotter/finder. The plotter is fine, but it cant find bottom in any water over 120ft half the time

ive been looking at the lowrance hook7 as a dedicated finder, or should i get a hds?

budgeting in the 1000-1500 range

i understand the p66 is the transducer to get, or should i get chirp?

 

[ziggy]

I've also been shopping and man they make it complicated to compare units. Chart programs , transducers, interoperability etc. This coupled by the fact most vendors seem to only carry one or two brands and their employees aren't terribly knowledgeable about them. It's been a real grind and far more complicated than need be. It doesn't help when terms such as side scan are sometimes replaced by structure scan, which near as I can tell are the same thing,Chirp is replaced by broadband, which are different etc.
I worked in Sonar for many years and still find it baffling. Would be nice if the manufacturers would standardize their terminology and Specs and prove some of their outlandish claims.

 

[Fixit]

Well that's not helpful! Lol. ( I appreciate the feed back though).

I'm not sure if I'm flogging a dead horse but I just ordered a new p66 transducer to upgrade from the p58 it came with. Hopefully that helps solve my "bottomless" ocean problems. I'm wondering if the original one is going bad

 

[abl]

If you won't be interfacing with another unit or radar buy the hook 7. I installed one in my new to me boat and have been very happy with mapping and sounder. I did not bother with an upgrade to the transducer

 

[Reeltime]

I have the Elite 7 with chirp .. had the stock transducer on at the beginning and it was great ,figured to make it even better with the p66 and it's not
what i thought it would be tried every setting and still didn't pick up as much as the stock chirp trans ,p66 was great at high speeds ,guess it's not made
for my sounder , switched back to the stock ..picking up sharp bait balls and fish arc now .. when i up grade ,p66 will probably go back on ..

if you go with the hook 7 i would stick with the stock chirp transducer ..

 

[ziggy]

Looking at an Elite 7 TI and was thinking of upgrading to a P66. Only concern I have is when I googled P66 installation the company doesn't recommend it be installed on a large inboard. Not sure if a Volvo Penta 4.3 fits the bill?

 

[Sr SQ]

Pretty sure they are referring to a IB yours is actually a IO
Airman docent recommend any of their transducers mounted aft of the propellers, you will be fine with a P66 on your boat.
The question regarding P66/Elite TI compatibility is a different topic.

 

[ziggy]

Pretty sure they are referring to a IB yours is actually a IO
Airman docent recommend any of their transducers mounted aft of the propellers, you will be fine with a P66 on your boat.
The question regarding P66/Elite TI compatibility is a different topic.

Thanks that makes sense in relation to prop/ xducer placement. Apparently there is no problem pairing a P66 with the Lowrance TI, now whether the performance is enhanced???? Local vendors seem to think yes?

 

[ericl]

Hi Fixit. I think Ziggy gave you the truth; sometimes it sucks.

On the Hull Truth forum there is a guy name Gil Travis that runs an internet Marine Electronics business called semperfifishing. I believe he is email only. Gil is a former military sonar expert. Based on Gil's comment that Garmin CHIRP is superior to Lowrance is saltwater, I need up with a Garmin 840xs & TM150 transducer. You can pay less by getting a smaller screen size. Dunno about Lowrance, but the optional Garmin Fishing maps chart are awesome for our area; the built in chart is pretty useless.

Quick & easy is get in touch with Gil.

DIY is get on the airman transducer site & research CHIRP.

As to how the different transducers perform, it depends on you expectations. I believe with CHIRP you will just about always see Salmon below you. My experience with non-CHIRP is sometimes you will see Salmon. I have to admit that I leave the sounder on "auto" as I am hopefully too busy fishing to fool with the electronics calibration.

 

[ziggy]

Dug into the TM 150 specs and after comparing them with the P66 have decided to go with the TM150. Hopefully the final change! What a process, lol!

 

[fishin_magician]

The reality is... spend all the money you want and your sounder and transducer....if you can't fish your gear correctly.... you will be outfished by someone who does not even look at their sounder all the time.

Fish the same tried and true locations as everyone else and you will catch fish.

"Seeing salmon" isn't going to help you catch them unless you are fishing a terminal fishery where short bite windows make all the difference. Your indicator when fishing is strikes and bites.

Guides find good sounders and transducers useful when fishing structure...and they sometimes give you ballpark for depths in open water. Fishing that arch at 300' down is a low percentage hook up... and it was probably a hake or ratfish.

Better off spending more money on gas and your rig than a fancy transducer and sounder.... you want to see BAIT, DEPTH and STRUCTURE. Got that? Full the tub.

ECVI and Vancouver guys are filling the Tub right now just getting the gear in the water offshore Gabriola and Vancouver....if you're watching for a salmon in your screen right now you probably missed a strike or two.....and your rod has popped off and the rod is already loaded up.....lol

 

[ziggy]

True it's just another tool in the box. When the bites on you don't need a fish finder , fancy lures, flashers or even skill. And, if you have a good source of lead and a mold, who cares where the bottom is. Good excuse to buy more of the latest lures and flashers as well I guess.

But if you fish structure, if you have to search for fish, if you want to see the bottom you're anchoring up on for Hali, then I'd suggest there is nothing wrong with a little more knowledge. Then again you can just spend a thousand bucks on a reel. Lol

 

[ericl]

I think to each their own is a good conclusion here. Personally I'd rather not spend hours trolling bait balls w/o Salmon or trolling at 60ft when I should be trolling at 150. So the guy that knows how to run gear AND has superior electronics IMO will come out ahead. Fished the Canadian Princess boats a few times over the years - they had Furuno sounders. They would always search until they saw what they thought were Salmon, then called-out the depths of the fish so the jiggers would know how deep to work their gear.

 

[fishin_magician]

I think to each their own is a good conclusion here. Personally I'd rather not spend hours trolling bait balls w/o Salmon or trolling at 60ft when I should be trolling at 150. So the guy that knows how to run gear AND has superior electronics IMO will come out ahead. Fished the Canadian Princess boats a few times over the years - they had Furuno sounders. They would always search until they saw what they thought were Salmon, then called-out the depths of the fish so the jiggers would know how deep to work their gear.

Yes...true enough and good comments..

A 4 rod spread on 2 downriggers finds where they are at pretty quickly.... personally if I had no sounder it would suit me just fine now that we're no longer on structure.

Ultimately, part of being a better angler is learning the hard way.

i would not trade my learning experiences for having it "easy".

Generalizations provide excellent starting points.

 

[Prawn Star]

I mainly use my GPS to fish. I find my HDS 5 is good for marking bait and that's good enough. Follow the bait and contour lines.

 

[Aces]

I use the transducer that cane with my hds lowrance and it works fine.

I agree with fm

 

[ziggy]

I mainly use my GPS to fish. I find my HDS 5 is good for marking bait and that's good enough. Follow the bait and contour lines.

I like to correlate my chart reading with the bottom readout from my sounder as well as see the bait balls,or lack thereof. Everyone has their own process and a lot depends on where you fish and where the fish hold.

 

[ericl]

I agree with fishing_magician & Fishtofino as well. I am sure many guides have the F/F on just so the client's have something to look at instead of asking stupid questions. Things are different for beginners though, or fishing a new area.

Here is a youtube with P66 non-CHIRP & TM150 CHIRP side-by-side. The CHIRP xducer is about $100 more than the P66: