GPS/Sonar/FishFinder Combo

jasonh

Hi

Can anyone recommend some good GPS/Sonar/Fishfinders?
It's to be used on the corrib with 12ft Aluminium Boat.

Thanks

Jason

J. Ramone

What species and tactics would it be used for?

jasonh

it will be basically for salmon/trout and a mixture of fly fishing and lure fishing

coolwings

Taking salmon and feeding trout are in such shallow waters that the shoreline is your biggest fish finder. Polaroids does much of the rest, sighting fish directly or weedbeds and so on.
The sonar is more helpful for finding trolling areas for deep fishing for trout that are resting (not feeding) and ferox, and trolling for pike on offshore structure.

The Lowrance HDS range and the Humminbird 500 and higher series are all good. If you are figuring out how to make your own fishing maps there are slight differences between the two makes. This page might help choose if self made lake maps is important

If you want to see weeds and be able to tell them from the lake bottom, and see bottom texture don't get a unit under 1500 watts or less than a 5" screen. A 4" screen shows fish and the depth but confuses fish and weeds.

jasonh

thanks a mill coolwings, much appreciated

J

county5

Hope im in the right place with this post, got a humminbird 597ci hd back from the states at x-mas cant seem to set it up right, at least i never manage to mark any fish! iv scoured the web looking for answers im usually trolling for pike and do manage to catch a few just annoyed i cant see any of theese arches the youtube vids show. Any help would be appreciated

MarcinG

jasonh wrote: »

Hi

Can anyone recommend some good GPS/Sonar/Fishfinders?
It's to be used on the corrib with 12ft Aluminium Boat.

Thanks

Jason

I would go towards lowerance (you can make maps for it yourself) and recommend something with sd card slot.
But excluding down imaging ones (unless new models now have both down imaging and traditional imaging).
Humminbird is way harder to make or find proper maps but my 597cihddi
combo has even maps for rivers like suck and erne.
i think i would recommend humminbird 5xx series or 7xx series with Side imaging feature.
DI in my opinion isn't worth much (and i'm saying it after 1,5yrs of using one) but SI is brilliant.

MarcinG

county5 wrote: »

Hope im in the right place with this post, got a humminbird 597ci hd back from the states at x-mas cant seem to set it up right, at least i never manage to mark any fish! iv scoured the web looking for answers im usually trolling for pike and do manage to catch a few just annoyed i cant see any of theese arches the youtube vids show. Any help would be appreciated

look over google how archs are created and why you can not get swimming pool like pictures in real life
After few years of using different finders newer seen arch in my life.
But it is safe to say that anything you see above bottom level without contact with it is possibly not a cow or a cat
Look on YT for series (7?) of videos on advanced humminbird sonar or something like this.

county5

Was afraid I'd get a reply like this. Just at the moment it feels like I only have an expensive depth finder and regretting not getting one with si. So you've never managed to locate and catch a fish useing any fishfinder? I had a garmin 90 and my father thinks we should put it back on because it showed fish emblems! Trying to tell him that's not how they're supposed to be used. Thanks for your reply anyway sir.

MarcinG

what i'm saying is that:
1 fish not necessarily create archs (it would take fish swimming across beam directly through middle from front to back).
it will more likely create dots/lines etc.
2 only fish i successfully located and caught on rod were perch and mackerel (shoal fish)
I newer noticed fish before bite (quite often trolling on 6-10m on 20m of water).
But pelagic fish will be hard to find because: engine running, quite narrow cone in upper part of water column (covering little water).
3 but i once caught nearly 100 of mackerel from benith my boat and nothing on display maybe slightly tinted image.
4 you can always turn your fish id on if you wish but don't forget it is far from perfect.
5 i'm talking that SI is good because it is taking all doubts from traditional fishfinder display (like if you going along slope at 45 degrees - having 3m of water on your left and 6 on you right - my best guess is that fishfinder will show 3m - maybe with additional 3m of something.
6 turn your white line for bottom view (way easier to see how hard it is).
i have DI unit and so far never seen something which could even be similar to pictures in advertisement (hanging branches of sunken tree or something like this). have unit for 1.5yrs and used DI maybe few times. If it comes to SI i think it is just brilliant.