Amortizing a $ 1,000 transducer--- 165 dozen herring more to go....

[Sharphooks]

Saw the wonders of a high-end transducer in action yesterday. Spring fishing was slow so I decided to go chase herring. It was high-noon, the sun was a-blazing, so they were deep. I found a school in about 70 M of water. So I drop my jig down and surprise---I see a very clear image of my 2 oz. piece of lead tied to the end of my jigs drop down through the water column. Crystal clear picture---thin blue line dropping all the way down into the red blob a the bottom of he screen.

As soon as the blue line disappeared into the blob, I immediately felt the jig load up. I reel back up through the column-- again the thin blue line.

When the jig broke the surface, a nice green label herring on every hook. One more drop and I have a full tray.

I figure at $ 6.00 a tray, I have 165 trays left to catch to amortize that 'ducer. Going to be a long summer trying

 

[Hookin'up]

Wow!!, sounds very cool, what system are you running and which ducer
any chance of a screenshot, I have been considering a better ducer but don't know whether I can justify the cost
Tim

 

[Derby]

just do a few more windows...... Thinking of a up- grade myself next season...

 

[Hookin'up]

just do a few more windows...... Thinking of a up- grade myself next season...

Thanks BUDDY!!
I've been curious about these high end ducers for a while now and wonder how much better they are and Transom or thru hull?
I just put a new HDS touch system in and so far not very happy with the performance
Maybe a 1000w ducer would help

 

[albernifisher]

Yeah the difference in transducers is quite amazing, I went from the stock 250 Watt to the 600 Watt and love it. Can see my jig going up and down on the bottom in 150'. We spend all this money on fancy head units that can do so much but we seldom upgrade the buisness end of it that lets it perform how it's supposed to.

 

[Derby]

Yeah the difference in transducers is quite amazing, I went from the stock 250 Watt to the 600 Watt and love it. Can see my jig going up and down on the bottom in 150'. We spend all this money on fancy head units that can do so much but we seldom upgrade the buisness end of it that lets it perform how it's supposed to.

U running a HD-10?

 

[Derby]

Thanks BUDDY!!
I've been curious about these high end ducers for a while now and wonder how much better they are and Transom or thru hull?
I just put a new HDS touch system in and so far not very happy with the performance
Maybe a 1000w ducer would help

whats been the problem? The HD 12 Pat has in his boat seems good but haven't played with it much.... I usually use his HD-10 as that is what I'm us too....

 

[albernifisher]

Yup. a hds 10

 

[Sharphooks]

Wow!!, sounds very cool, what system are you running and which ducer
any chance of a screenshot, I have been considering a better ducer but don't know whether I can justify the cost
Tim

I went for the whole enchilada---Furuno 587 with an Airmar SS264W 50 kHz. It's a thru-hull transducer---mounted directly under my feet on the port sponson of my boat--more or less directly under my Scotty.

Here's a screen shot of a cannon ball, dummy flasher, and a cut-plug herring going through the water column above a bait ball. The picture on the unit is waaay better then it appears below---the screen-protector on the Furuno causes major distortion when trying to take a digital picture




Once you get these dialed in, you can actually see if your cut-plug is still spinning properly:



I don't do much jigging because the movement exacerbates bursitis in my right forearm but I've heard from the cool dudes who do a lot of jigging that with a 1 Kw set of elements, you can see the suspended fish, see your jig going down through the water column, and watch it disappear into a fish's mouth.

My guess is you need a high or a low slack tide and the fish directly under the boat to see this phenomenon.

 

[Karma-Kazi]

I have a stock standard horizon and im not going to lie I have on multiple occasions watched fish come in and take the bait. I even tell my dad to go get ready next to his rod right before he gets struck.

My favorite was when I first tried to bump my rigger when I knew a fish was following and not striking. Then within a second or two its banging! LOVE IT!

-KK

 

[Magspec]

Im looking at lowrance hds 7 touch gen2 with wireless adaptor for ipad in back of boat and radar. Should a guy go with the structure scan or go with both if possible and a nice thru-hall transducer for a aluminium boat?

 

[Finished Business]

I have been told you cannot use a thru-hull transducer on an aluminum boat. Interference being the reason, maybe someone can confirm better than I, but it was what I was told from folks in the know...

 

[Birdsnest]

I have been told you cannot use a thru-hull transducer on an aluminum boat. Interference being the reason, maybe someone can confirm better than I, but it was what I was told from folks in the know...

I have been doing it for 5 years. Seems fine to me but I have had some issues but for the most part it works most of the time.

 

[Gong Show]

I have been told you cannot use a thru-hull transducer on an aluminum boat. Interference being the reason, maybe someone can confirm better than I, but it was what I was told from folks in the know...

That has to be false.
I ran a lovely Koden that I could tell if a fish was smiling in my big old aluminum gillnetter.
I would buff the transducer every time I could. Do I ever miss both those machines.
If I was drifting with the engine off, I could hear the clicks through the hull!!

Gong Show.

 

[Magspec]

what would a guy use then? I heard thru-hall are the best but gotta have the right material for transducer some dont work with alum. I heard they have to be stainless?

 

[Magspec]

one guy had trim tab looking thing mounted on boat and then ran his transducer through that as well so didnt have to drill hole in boat i think thats a awesome idea going to look into doing that myself

 

[Sharphooks]

If you stumble on some of the Australian saltwater fishing websites, they seem to be miles ahead of everyone else in creative transducer applications. Some of these guys take thru-hull transducers and bolt them on to an adjustable rod (fabbed-up transom bracket) so they can get it down far enough below the hull to get clean water---just as good as a thru-hull but without the hole in your floor. I read that some of these guys launch off the beach and wanted a transom mount transducer that could be removed then deployed once in deeper water.

The off-the-rack transom mount brackets that Airmar makes are also pretty good (though somewhat spendy)

A guy could fab up a bracket pretty easily. I thought long and hard about a transom bracket but I have sponsons on my boat and between the sponsons, two large trim tabs with a big Honda in the middle. I just didn't have the real estate back there to put a transom bracket with a 1 kw transducer hanging off the end.

So now I have an in-hull (M260) and two feet away from that, a thru-hull SS264W---I'm here to tell you that the in-hull M260 gets every bit as good a picture (clear target separation, holds bottom at 30 knts down to 500 M) as the thru-hull. But I will also add that I probably have one of the best boats for an in-hull application---an almost completely flat bottom mid-ships, zero combing, zero foam, just a thin skin of glass.

An interesting sidebar: when Airmar came out to the PNW and saw this style boat (an Arima) they immediately purchased one to test their transducers. That's a testimony to the hull characteristics that make an in-hull shine.

As there seems to be interest in screen shot comparisons of 1 Kw transducers, here are a few I took today which I tack on to this post for informational purposes.

PIC No. 1: THRU-HULL SS264W HOOKED TO A FURUNO 587



SIMULTANEOUS SCREEN SHOT OF AN IN-HULL M260 HOOKED TO A FURUNO DFF1 (NAVNET SCREEN) FIRING AT 200 kHz




IN-HULL SS264W WITH A GEAR DROP DOWN TO A SCHOOL OF BAIT (cannon ball, dummy flasher, plug-cut herring):



IN-HULL SS264W (50Khz) ---result of going in behind a ferry's wake (the downside of low-frequency propagation in turbid water)



The in-hull M260 on high frequency setting (200 Khz) never lost its picture while the Furuno/SS264W picture at 50 kHz went blank---

 

[Sr SQ]

I run a M260 and a 585 as well........ the difference a good ducer makes over the giveaway little plastic jobs is night and day.
Wish I had the field of vision the 264w has most days though.