What do you like? What do dislike? What do you wish you'd have bought? Would you mount the transducer on the trolling motor or the transom?

There's a small one in the dash that will probably stay. What I want is one to mount up front.

I've a new boat and am in the market for one. I don't know a lot about them. You help would be greatly appreciated.

What kind of trolling motor, minnkota links with humming bird. Motor guide links to lowrance. No idea with the other sonar units on the market now. I like the birds myself, but I prefer minkota over motor guide so no choice either way.

Just an 85dollar Hummingbird. Just depth.

What type of fishing will you use it for?

Bass, crappie, Catfish on small lakes.

If I had money to burn, I would get a Garmin Panoptix Live Scope.

Read the forums over on Bass Boat Central. If you sign on and ask your question there I think you'll soon have more information than you ever thought possible. Those guys are SERIOUS about their electronics.

Me too Wabi. I thought I was buying the model with gps charting but didn’t read closely enough. Oh well, we still catch fish.

I have been doing a lot of research recently on Huminbird brand and features.

So, we have a few questions to consider, because you definitely get what you pay for.

1'st, How much do you want to afford to spend?

For crappie and bass, a good side imaging sonar will show you fish and structure between your boat and the shore. Check out some of the you-tube videos. Google crappie and side imaging. Many of the videos show the SI (side imaging) sonar units detecting crappie hanging under a boat dock 15 feet or more to the side of the boat.

My budget allowed me to purchase the Huminbird helix 7 inch mega SI. I am still learning its potential. But the round circles of fish beds are very easy to see.

At a significant increase in price, the Huminbird helix 9 offers mega SI+, for even better resolution.

With an unlimited budget, screen sizes go up to 12 and 15 inches, which allows more pixels to depict fish signals with better clarity and size. Advanced units offer networking with a cellphone, notepad, or laptop.

Most Humminbirds offer charting capability and GPS location. Extremely detailed maps are available from Huminbird on mSD cards. And advanced units may be networked with advanced Minn-Kota motors to give autopilot or "hover" capabilities.

You said you intended to keep the console mounted sonar. I would leave that transducer on the transom. And I would be interested in a front mounted transducer for the second sonar. The trolling motor transducer is available. But I do not know how the SI beam would work, as the trolling motor changes orientation as it steers.

I have Hummingbirds a Helix 7DI and a 10 SI. I won a small cheap Garmin at a local fish contest—but it has the fairly new Chirp technology. Best finder I own by far.

This is the best reply yet,so many features and such a broad price range. 200.00 or 3000.00. My minkota is linked to an 1198 and an 898 which are ancient tech. Right after I bought them.

I have a Lowrance HDS Live 7. I like it and am still learning to use it all. I would suggest adding a good mapping chip such as Navionics. I also have a cheaper Hook unit up front on the Motorguide for depth and basic finding. The only thing about the 7” screen is it can be kind of small when split. I have mine in a center console and the unit is front and center, so the small size isn’t really an issue for me.

I have a Garman Echomap Plus 93SV and love it. It's a 9 inch touch screen. It lists in Cabela's for 999 but if you watch in the fall they have had them on sale for the last few years. I bought mine two years ago and paid 599 for it. And I know they had them for that price last fall.

Ain’t got one!

You need two. One on the console with navigation and charts. That will allow you to find contours of the lake bottom. The second either mounted on the trolling motor or preferably a trolling motor with the transducer built in. Then you can follow contours or set headings. Bottom mapping capability is nice when you fish lakes for which there are no charts available.

I think doubletap's answer is perfect. That's how I intend to set up my boat next year. On my current kayak, I have a Hummy 197 DI which gives me both sonar and down imaging, in color. No GPS. Not many of my local lakes have been mapped anyway, but for those that are, I carry a small Garmin handheld with a marine map chip.

Some of the models out there can link via Bluetooth. You can have a unit at the helm which may be connected to the transducer. The unit can send info to a second unit, (or even a tablet) eliminating the need for a second transducer. This setup, along with a side-scan transducer mounted on a bow mount trolling motor, would be my ideal.

I just put mine in a month or so ago and I’ve been happy with it, not sure I believe the fish it shows are always fish but the depth has been spot on. I do wish it had GPS just so I can make sure I’m trolling the same line in the wind. Usually when you catch a Saugeye they’re in a school and you can get another if you go right back over them but it’s tough to judge in a 15mph crosswind.

Watching YouTube vids the side scan stuff looks pretty awesome but I can’t justify a big $$ unit on a little tin boat. I know a guy here who has more money in his electronics than I do in my whole outfit, he catches a lot of fish but not that many more than I do.

I just upgraded to a helix 9 mega SI.Out chasing Kokanee the other day with it. Have the map chip too. Sure makes fishing new lakes easier

I use a hook with a worm on it.

Replaced a 5" Garmin with a Humminbird 7" Helix 7 CHIRP MSI GPS G3 for a bigger screen. Sorry I did not get the G3N (bluetooth) so I do not have to remove the unit to connect to computer to update maps. The Garmin had all 1' contour maps on one LakeVu micro SD chip. The Humminbird US and Canada chip has only the 5' Navigation charts on it. If you want the 1' fishing maps you have to buy a $24 annual app and download a few states to only the Humminbird 16GB chip. If you want the complete US 1' contours you have to buy the Regional Navionics chart for $150 for each of the 5 US regions or Alaska or Canada chips. The individual Humminbird chips do not cover a very large area. MN is on one chip. Garmin I can view individual lakes on computer in Base Camp (free), mark waypoints and transfer them to the unit. Cannot view Humminbird or Navionics on computer. You can use the Navionics Chart Viewer on line only but you cannot mark waypoints and transfer them to unit. Humminbird needs wifi but Garmin does not. I fish remote lakes where no wifi so I wish I had stuck with Garmin.

I run a Helix 10 , with all the bells and whistles..there are so many versions of the helix watch out ...ive been on the BBC boards longer then i been here..

Start at the 1min mark , love doing this as there are really no maps to be found around here..so i make my own !

i crappie fish several times a week in local farm reservoirs. it is rare that i fish water deeper than 12 to 15 feet. i prefer hummingbird electronics. don't know the model name/number but it cost about 235.00 from wmt. all i care about is the depth and bottom contour. i look for stumps, tree limbs, etc., anyplace crappie are staging. the newer, panographic units look to be good stuff, but don't appeal to me. i could get by fine with a 99.00 unit, as long as i can see the bottom and some structure. i was fishing the other day and a fellow trolled over to me. he said he had 2700.00 worth of electronics on his boat and was trying to learn how to use it. i couldn't help him. good luck with whichever unit you select.

I fear I will be that fellow.

I have a lowrance elite7 ti. I replaced the factory transducer with a 50/200hz because I sometimes fish deep water and the 50hz with CHIRP really shines. I've marked fish down over 2500'. It definitely helps with my type of fishing.

The cheapest fishfinder made will serve you just fine. You may want to get a combination unit so that when you find a spot you can press a button and save it as a waypoint.

I have an el-cheapo on my kayak. In 20 feet of water I can watch a 2 ounce egg weight sink to the bottom.

The difference is, your standard 2D fishfinder will show you a circle of the lake bottom equal to depth. In 15 feet of water, you can see structure in a 15 foot swath under the boat.

With a good side imaging sonar you can see a detailed view of the bottom structure in a 150 foot swath of the lake or more.

If you are on a 3 acre pond, that increased viewing range may not mean much. The reservoirs around here are typically 30 to 50 miles long.

You can not see fish hanging against a vertical rock face ten feet below the surface with traditional sonar. Not unless you are willing to put a few scratches on your boat. Nor can you see fish in water too shallow for your boat to traverse.

With side imaging, I can troll along 20 feet from the rock face, and see a school of crappie or a bass against the rock with my sonar. Then I can tell the grandkids exactly where to cast.

Or it might be a downed tree fifty feet to the right or left of the boat, or a rockpile with fish suspended at the sides.

Sure, we used to catch a lot of fish before any kind of electronics became available. Then the depth flashers came along and showed us where to jig for perch in the lake. And I have used the 2D Huminbirds for twenty years. But the new side imaging units give you about 100 times more data to work with.

Basically, all they are is time savers. A good sonar saves you time spent casting into sterile waters, and gets you onto the fish sooner.

I have a Garmin 73SV. It has the lakeVu maps, Chirp, and sideview features as well as the ability to create maps. I use it for both bass fishing and trolling for trout as well as basic navigation on new lakes.

My old unit was a very basic hummingbird unit 2d unit that had no mapping. but other than that old unit I don't have much to compare it to.

I will say that the resolution ( i guess because of the CHIRP feature) it sees things that the old 2d unit didn't and the SV lets me see structure off to the side. I am no great sonar wiz, but if I am working a shoreline and the SV shows something odd ( submerged rock, etc) it will get a cast or two and that has been a fish getter for me. sometimes you can see fish off to the side too.

The lake view maps have been useful, but they are no replacement for mapping a water yourself. Probably 80% of my fishing is on the lake where we have our summer cottage and I have pretty much mapped out the 400 acre lake and fount several significant items of structure that were not in the lakeVu maps, nor the state distributed contour maps. The lake isn't that big and gets fished over pretty well, but those three "sunken islands" I found with the mapping feature have been productive for me and I never see anyone else fishing them probably because they aren't on the shoreline and aren't listed on the maps.

I am happy with the unit and the 7" screen has been good enough.

Thats my two cents but I really don't have any experience of competitive units to tell you how it would stack up.

Go Minn Kota and Humminbird. SI is great but the new Mega SI/ DI is the way to go.

Just as I thought. There’s a lot to this. I wish you could try out different models.

You tube videos of the units in question is about as close as you can get.

There is more inside the new fish finders than i can learn...my old bird after a few years i figured it out ..i could , like said above ...find the fish, mark the fish and then proceed to attempt a catch...98% of the time the ff and me were/are spot on !

I have a 9" Garmin on the console Di and Si with navionics. Transducer on the stern. Have a Lowrance Hook2 on the front. Transducer is on the troll motor just chirp. Humminbirds probably have the best image if you want to spend the money for them.

Does the Hook2 do about everything you want? There’s a Hook2 4x in the dash of my boat. It’s much better than whatever I had on my last boat.

The last time I went ocean fishing, they had some kind of fish finder that looked like a flat screen tv. The fish actually looked like fish. I could see my bait in the water and the fish take it. They said it was about $8000. I’m not sure mama would go for that.