whats the easiest and best depth finder/ fish finder for the money

[rasbo]

gotta wonder....

[bullcanyon]

Not sure, but I won't buy another that isn't color.  I absolutely love a color finder.

[robodad]

We need to find out which one Jimmy Smith has, seems its almost like having a video cam under your boat !! 

[ICEMAN]

.

[rasbo]

funny Iceman...I have done something like that before :chuckle:Mark,,,Twain 

[jeepasaurusrex]

 

[BLKBEARKLR]

Rasbo,

What exactly are you looking for in the fish finder?

If you are wanting a basic one for depth, they are very in expensive.

If you want a sideview structurescan, trust me they are really expensive, about 3500.00 I am still saving for mine on the boat.

Joe

[fishcrazy]

Rasbo, got yer PM but will reply here.

I have the Garmin Matrix 97. not sure if they still make it. It's a good unit but the pixel size is way big. I don't really know much about them. I know they can get expensive!

You should be able to find a good one for the price you are looking at. If I had about 3k I would sell mine and get a new one.

Kris

[robodad]

I have the Garmin Matrix

Aren't these two different kinds of fish ?? 

[fish-on37]

I just picked up the Lowrance HDS7 Insight. Took it out for the first time today. So far I love it.

[PolarBear]

Out of all my sonars (Lowrance, Garmin, Furuno, Eagle) I like my Lowrances the best as far as reliability and ease of operation.

[rasbo]

this is the one Im going to get,what say you all about this one

[wildmanoutdoors]

Cant go wrong with the Lowrance! I love my split screen. 6 years old now and not a hitch.

[rasbo]

Cant go wrong with the Lowrance! I love my split screen. 6 years old now and not a hitch.

that's good news,wondering if I need to take a college course to use it

[wildmanoutdoors]

Ya know there really not bad. Pretty intuitive actually. Once you hit the menu button, everything is pretty easy to get to. And the Page button for going to either side of the screen is neat for easy zooming and such. I think you'll find once you get it were you want it you wont have to do much more. Your zoom page will just about always be on the map side as thats what you'll zoom the most.
Lowrance is always putting on free seminars that really teach you the inside and outs. Plus that model is probably one of the easiest yet. Not too many buttons like my LCX. I think you'll like it allot! You'll love color and those cat fish will not be able to hide!

[Rick]

this is the one Im going to get,what say you all about this one

Personally I wouldn't buy a FF/chartplotter combo. If the unit fails,you lose everything.

I wouldn't buy a Lowrance either. I've had two different units. They're great when they work,but if something happens to them, Lowrance's customer service sucks.

I bought a Garmin and never looked back. IMO the Garmin is easier to use and its worked flawlessly for 5 years.

I'd do a Garmin GPS/chartplotter and a Furuno FF.

[C-Money]

I think Lowrance is really hard to beat. We had a fancy Lowrance on my uncles charter boat that worked great. We had a fairly simple Humminbird as well on the boat, more than once that Humminbird would mark fish that the Lowrance was not. We had a few trips that we were really glad we had that Humminbird, we would set downriggers to depths as indicated, and started getting fish for clients.

[jeepster]

+1 for lowrance

btw you dont even need a fish finder.... just need depth, some formulas and a knowledge of the color spectrum in relation to depth....

not gonna give away all my secrets but my 85$ walmart special "outfishes" 1000$ + units. a gps is more important than a fish finder

my  ..... pm me if you want to know more....


"fish finders" are a marketing campaign...... totally unnecessary, while it is important to know depth, a true fisherman should know where the fish are durring any given time of the day and with a little research, its all predictable.

[PolarBear]

Do not rely on the "fish ID symbol" on your sonar.  Turn the damn thing off and go with the grayline, it is much more accurate and dependable.  Fish ID, unless you turn the sensitivity waaaay down will mark false fish readings the majority of the time.  A lot of folks rely too much on the fishie symbols and get frustrated when they can't get them to bite.   

[jeepster]

first of all this advice is for saltwater salmon fishing only....

now i have the feeling ive made an ass of myself on this website before.... but this is something i have learned while trying to catch fish in the sound to make ends meet and keep my jeep from being reposesed.... this is what i have learned.... professionally.

alright so im going to give away some advice that is mind bending, totally contradictive to alot of thought, and to be honnest, it has saved me several 1000$ in equpment and hours of time..... this is professional advice from comercial fishermen that i have collected over the years. save yourself the stress of buying an expensive fish finder, and learn how to do things the simple, most lethal, cost effictive way....


all a fish finder does is shows you the depth and where POSSIBLE fish are.... here in the puget sound... a 35lbs king salmon has the same ping as a 10lbs jellyfish....

after gillnetting for countless months in the sound and using a "fish finder", the monster "fish" or "bait ball" shows up on the fish finder exactly the same as a huge hoard of jellyfish...

YES JELLYFISH.... they will F up your fish finder readings unlike any other.... and having to haul a gill net in up to 10 times a day, you will find that the "line" on your sounder that appears to be a HUUUUGE bait ball.... can be nothing more than a hoard of white jellys......

even on 8000$ top of the line commercial units, a "fish" can range from anything from a monster king to a submerged log.

there is no such thing as a "fish finder" that will tell you "king salmon 300 feet ahead 90 feet down", all a fish finder does is say there is SOMETHING roughly 90 feet down.

what i have learned:

when fishing downriggers, ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW is the angle of your downrigger wire in relation to your down rigger ball. there is a book about this. i forget the title, but it basically states that with a 15lbs ball, if your downrigger line is at a 45deg angle, you are at the the most efficiant fishing speed.

SPEED..... many downrigger fisherman worry about the speed of thier lure (not the boat, but the action of thier gear).... the simple fact is.... if you can find the chart that relates ball weight to depth to angle of downrigger wire it equals optimum speed. screw gps speed, screw nautical tachs. angle of wireXball weight/depth= speed

SECCOND

ALL FISH HATE LIGHT.

what that means.....

many of you have noticed, certain colors work better in early hours  many use pinks, reds, yellows, light greens in the early hours and dark greens, glows, purples, whites in the mid day to late evening hours, and repeat early morning colors to late evening-sundown.... well, go read up about the color spectrum..... the simple fact is salmon hate light. 

every color will disperse to almost invisibility status at its appropriate depth

you have to adjust the color of your gear according to the depth that the salmon swim to provides comfort to thier eyes....

the fish dive to the changing light conditions of the day. when its darkest they are on the surface.... when the sun is at high noon, the fish hide in the deep dark.

light hurts the fishes eyes..... so they go deep.

remember ROYGBIV the same applies to what depth the colors fade from the fishes eyes. for exapmle at high noon, a red hoochie will be invisable to a fish at 50 feet. where as a purple will be good to almost 100 feet.

read up in what colors fade at what depth. once you figure that out, you can start to figure out what colors fade at roughly about what time of day depending on light conditions.

fish finders are a joke. the most important thing you need to know is what gps topographical line to follow....

all a fish finder does is provide you the depth under the boat, but a gps will show you the ledges and ridges the fish will hide behind/under.....

using the downrigger angle/ball weight formula and following the contures of a gps line combined with the time of day and at what depth colors fade from the spectrum............... that is derby winning, money making, fish slaying facts.......


thats why i claim to god my 85$ eagle cuda 168 fish finder that i bought at WALMART will out fish any other fish finder out there.... it tells me the depth and thats all i need a unit to do........


this is my  but ill be damned if somebody comes up with a more effictive cost eccificant way of fishing on the salt


time of dayX at what depth lure colors fade X angle of downrigger cable DIVIDED by downrigger weight.....


find the official formula.... and you guys will learn 1000% more than even comercial fisherman


its as simple as that

[PolarBear]

I discovered the difference in colors at certain depths and clarity back in high school (early 80's) when I bought a Color-C-Lector and played around with it when I was tournament bass fishing.  It was pretty interesting to discover which colors showed up best at what depth.  You are also right about the sonar pings and the crap that it registers as fish.  Jellyfish, drifting kelp, seals etc all will lead to false readings.   As said, a sonar is best for depth, bottom structure and contour.  I do believe that with a good knowledge of reading grayline marks and monkeying with the sensitivity that you can target fish to some degree, but don't rely solely on it.

[Angus]

Damn Jeepster, you got it all figurd out but then again, I knew everything when I was 22 also.

My guess is, if you couldn't recognize jellyfish from a baitball or tell a salmon from other fish, you either had no idea how to opeate the unit and probably just left all the settings on auto or you didn't spend enough time using it.
I've run charter boats in AK. for 20 years and use high quality Furuno electronics, I'm on the water all day, everyday and I can tell you in all honesty that when you use quality color electronics and fine tune them, (something I don't think alot of people do because alot of people I fish with have their finders on auto) you' ll learn to tell the subtle differences in the various targets the unit picks up.
I've seen jellyfish and they've always shown up in yellows and greens on my screen and they look like loosely scattered bait balls. Baitfish, whether its herring, candlefish or whatever almost always show red but occassionally show green and are almost always tightly packed, atleast where I fish in AK they are becasue somethings eaing them.
Salmon, especially kings always mark as red slashes, and no, you can't tell a king frm a silver from a pink or sockeye or chum, they all show up red and the size of the mark on the screen is no indication of the size of the fish. A 10lbs silver that swims through the center of the cone will leave a big, solid mark on the screen whereas a 30lbs. king that barely clips the edge of the beam won't leave much of a mark.
I cannot tell you how many times I've seen a big red slash on the screen at say 80' while were fishing in 120' of water and tell my client to fish from 80' to 100' and we hook up (I use line counter reels and strictly mooch).

My suggestion to you would be to learn how to use your FF, manually fine tune it and don't use the stupid fish symbols, their a joke, kind of like the Cuda FF . Maybe then you'll understand why a majority of the commercial fleet run high end electronics, but then again, what do know, we just catch fish for a living!

[Elite1]

i have a hummin bird 997si , that sucker does everything but sing to ya. still have not figured everything out yet.