Lowerance HDS 8 - GPS/Chartplotter/Fishfinder

Fish-Hunter

Fish-Hunter

Active Member
Hello all, new to forum, first post, here goes.
I am in the market for a new fish finder/combo unit, and after looking at the market have narrowed it down to the HDS-8. Noticed a lot of customer service issues on blogs from the USA, not much to mention from Canada. I am looking for guys using it here in BC, pointedly on the West Coast VI. Is anyone using the Structure Scan option, does it WORK?? (It needs to work at least 250-300 feet and up in my opinion otherwise it is just an expensive gadget, as we are not lake fishing in 60 feet of water). Any comments/opinions in general on this units troubles/issues/benefits/performance would be great, would like to make sure that it is worth the $$$$.$$ that they want for it. (Bring Out Another Thousand X 3).

Thanks,
Jay
 
I know there was a good chat on this topic a while ago on the saltwater fishing forum maybe one of the members can recall when. cheers Sammy
 
If there was a chat session previously, that would be great if anyone knows where to find it. I would like to look at any and all info that i can find before a purchase is made. I tried to find a thread b-4 but got caught up other threads on other intersting topics, if there is one thing that fishermen like to do as much as fishing, that is talk fishing. :cool:
 
Hey Ray, in order to get one of these units, I am going to have to not only sharpen a lot more saws, but hey maybe I can start sharpening hooks too. ;):D


Jay.
 
Hey fish hunter, i bought the smaller version the HDS7 a year ago and I am very happy with it. No service needed yet - so I cannot comment on there. But I bought it at a reputable dealer in Victoria and they provide service if needed and I trust them.
The structure scan - I only heard second hand stories that you can pretty much forget it past 100' depth. Seems more a lake feature and it makes sense when you try to picture the physics of the side beams and how it works. It simply cannot work well in deep waters. But then again technology leaps so quickly - maybe not long from now that's what it's gonna be.
 
Hey chris73, thanks for the input. How are the charts (do you have WCVI charts?), are the charts accurate and how good is the gps unit? I think that the key to the customer service is in fact mainly influenced by the company and people that goods are purchased from, stand up vendors - stand up for their customers. In regards to the Structure Scan, I have heard similar (good to about 100'), but have also heard comments that it works up to 250+ feet also.

Definately interested in hearing from anyone that has first hand experience with one of these units to see if it works here on the west coast in the deeper waters.

What are all of you guides out there using on your boats, are any of you using these HDS units?
 
I have owned a lot of different sounders,I now own the hds 7 and it is far and away the best sounder I have owned.Doesnt loose bottom and the built in antenna locks on in seconds.As far as the structure scan goes,not sure but I do plan on adding it within the next couple of weeks
 
I bought the Navionic Platinum maps with the unit and it's an excellent map that covers all VI - maybe even all BC coast - not sure have to look again. It's probably the most detailed GPS map you can buy these days. The 3D function I find a bit toyish - I only use the 2D maps. The 3D isn't detailed enough to shown you small bottom channels or so - just the large humps and valleys and this you can figure out just as well from the 2D I find. As alberni said, the integral GPS antenna locks on amazingly fast even if I sit in my carport with not much sky to see. And the sounder is probably as good as it gets at the moment; light years better than the X85 I was using before. I heard that buying a better transducer could increase the sonar function even more - not sure if I even want that. So all in all I am very happy with this unit.
 
I installed the HDS8 this past summer w. the Navionics Platinum plus card. unit works great, satellite tracking on startup is very fast. no service issues. 3D version of the charts isn't needed. in fact it took noticeably longer to(re-load when zooming or driving off the page...which makes sense as there is more data. it was useful to overlay satellite photos of land on top of 2d marine info. but i'm not a plane or a car, so i eventually reverted to 2D. i checked out structure scan, but i didnt buy it. i think if you're a wreck diver, or a bass fisherman searching lake structure it would be useful, but imho its not needed on WCVI. the unit came with the 200/83khz dual transducer.... held bottom fairly well at 25mph+...83 worked great, and tracked the balls easily...had some intermittent loss of bottom with the 200...not sure why.
Steve
 
I mostly plan on useing the structure scan for jigging,i think seeing all the nooks and crannys would certainly help me find the big bucketmouths
 
For two years I have waited and paid for replacement cards by Navionic's. They have not yet fixed the problem. There are issues all over Johnstone Straight on all of their newer cards. Here is there reply...Should I mention it is a canned reply as I have seen it over and over again.

Owen,

We are currently correcting this, however it will not be released until the end of this year, beginning of next year. I will let you know as soon as I have more information for you. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.


Thank you,
Jennifer Pereira
Navionics Customer Service
Tel: (800) 848-5896 Fax: (508) 291-6006
www.navionics.com

Just got this reply last week, Tyee Marine is also tring to deal with this as every card they sell is crap for Johnstone Straight. Want to see it?? come on by and I will show you. I am in the Comox Valley.


 
albernifisher, my thoughts exactly! I think that this feature would work great for finding the stucture that the big lurkers love to hide around. I would just really like to know if the unit will see down to say 200 foot range. Apparently it will see up to 250' to the left and 250' to the right and the transducer is in fact conical (shaped like a tube) to shoot out the signals on a fan array, so should it not also reach straight down aprox 250' also??? (if it is set at that range). At the very least it should be great for finding bait fish that are not directly under the boat in the down scan sonar path, or schools of fish that are not directly under the boat either. If it will work down to say the 200' mark then I think it would be great for finding structre out on some of the banks off shore also. I would love to hear how well it works when you get one coupled up to your HDS 7, as so far it doesn't seem that anyone out here is using it yet.

Thanks, Jay.
 
fishassassin123, Owen is it? This does concern me a bit as I have heard on other forums that guys (and gals) have had some issues with Navionics charts, never heard resolve if any to the concerns that were brought up. It would be great to know that if one finds a "bogus area" on the e-charts that there would be a fix, a solution, an upgrade, a replacement chart, i don't know, but some sort of real resolve to the problem, because from what I understand the programs are not cheap right??? The programs are nice and fancy and all, but in the end of the day they do need to work for the safety of those using them, now I know that one is not supposed to replace paper charts with one of these programs, but if they are not reliable to use even as a supplement in the ares where you fish, then why bother spending the money on them?

As for the Navionics Platinum + 3D charts I had scepticisim about the reality of them, thought the same as what a couple of you guys have mentioned, they look cool but how practicle are they in the real world??

Thank you guys for all of the input so far, this is exacly what I am looking for, keep it coming, I am still interested in seeing how many guys are now running the HDS units out here and how many guys have the Structure Scan units, and do they work here. :cool:
 
LastChance, great to hear that someone is using the Structure scan! :D The question of the hour is.... how deep can it see??? I have heard that some guys can only get it to work down to about 100', while I have also been told that it will work down to about 250'. What are your experiences with it???

In regards to the chart plotter, is it dead slow all of the time?? Or is it only slow on 3D?? Do you know yet if it is a Lowerance issue or a Navionics issue? Also how is Lowerance taking care of you while your unit is in for repairs?? It looks like you are guiding?? Do you have other back up units, or are you out in the cold while it is sent out? It is not like we can all afford two of these units at the price of them.

I am just as interested to hear how they take care of their customers as I am in hearing how their units work. As a potential customer, it would be nice to know what I am getting into. It seems that lots of guys from around here have had good experiences with their service, and are very loyal to Lowerance because of that, but it does show up in the various threads out there, that there are guys that for what ever the reasons, have bad experiences with Lowerance customer service and do not like the company (not necessarily the products) because of the bad experience.

All manufactures can and do make "Lemons", question is do they make me Lemonade (Hard:) or regular:() while they fix the problems, or do they make me make my own Lemonade and make me fix their problems that I purchased. (I think that my point is in there somewhere).

Thanks in advance,
Jay
 
i HAVE AN HDS 10 with structure--guess I don't get out enuff to really ber able to read it well--one thing I do know-buy from a dealer that gives great service (harbour chandler, nanaimo is my selling dealer) the dealer will likely help with Lowrance if they are worth there salt. My best new toy is the Lowrance wide band radar- truly awsome!
 
I don't get how to use the side scan unless you were casting for say bass? I mean if I spot something off to the left, now what?

I think its crazy how much detail but I just can't think if its actually useful in the real world?
 
the key element in any sounder you decide to invest in is the transducer. get an inexpensive transducer with an expensive sounder and you won't gain much. investing in an expensive transducer and mounting it to eliminate cavitation and hull bubles will go a long way to never loosing the bottom and actually being able to utilize the feature sets that your new sounder extolls.
 
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