Marine Electronics. . .Fishfinder/Chartplotter combo units?

CAnderson

CAnderson

Well-known member
I am and have been investigating Fishfinder/chartplotter combo units for my duck boat. I currently use the duck boat in the off season as well to fish. My hope is in the next year or two to purchase a 21-22' center console to fish from, but currently this is a do it all boat.

I have been looking seriously at the Lowrance Elite 7 Chirp. If any of you are familiar with this unit, can you make comparisons, to comparable units by Raymarine, Simrad, etc. keeping in mind this unit will be for the duck boat and should be comfortable in a wet and muddy environment. If you have suggestions for things to look for and look at, I am open to that. If there are features not worth paying the price for, I am all ears. This will truly be my first purchase of this nature. I have virtually no experience with these devices.

I am all ears and would love to hear your thoughts, experiences and opinions. I would prefer to stay in the $600-700 range unless there was a very persuasive argument to spend more. Less would be fine if appropriate to the use and environment.

Thanks in advance.

chad A
 
I'm a Garmin guy due to their simplicity & features.

You cannot go wrong with the new EchoMap 50 or 70 models.

I run the 70 on my bay boat & flats boat & the 50 on my Go-Devil & airboat.

All (4) four boats are exposed to the environment & the units can handle the abuse.

The reason I run (2) two different units is due to the size.

The 70 is a rectangle & the 50 is square so it came down to space on each vessel.

Both these units will do far more than the units you are currently looking at.

I've run a lot of different units/makes & models on a lot of different boats & the Garmins are in my opinion the best GPS units out there.

GPS - Garmin
Bottom/Fish Finders - Hummingbird (freshwater) Garmin, Simrad (Salt)
Radar - Furuno, Lorance, Simrad
Auto-Pilot - Ray-marine
The rest of the GPS makers are just playing catch up with Garmin.
 
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Garmon echomap 50 or 70 are nice I just picked up the 741xs for my new build. The runner up was the Furuno 1870w but I wasn't perfectly pleased with the chart layout.... Go to west marine and play with the demos they have there.
 
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For your usage in a smaller rig I would go with one of the newer garmin setups. I've had Garmin, Raymarine, Furuno and Simrad units on my fishing boats and this past season switched over to almost all Simrad aside from my sounder which is a Furuno.

The Simrad unit is awesome, especially the broadband radar, but I don't think you'll be needing that on your duck boat!
 
I know this doesn't help ya much, but I was looking at the Elite 7 to put into my fishing boat next year too. I was going to buy one last season, but just missed the rebates on them. I figured I'd wait until they go on sale again. Heck, I won't use it until April
anyway.

Steve
 
I was avidly watching the sales and rebates on the Elite7 series earlier this year but didn't have the money to put towards it then. I am debating on holding off to see what deals come up during the winter months or early spring. in the mean time, Lowrance also released the VHIRP version of their Elite7.

I am going to have to take the advice given earlier and head over to West Marine to have a look and play around a bit.

I really like the Navionics programming and display. It doesn't appear to be incorporated into the Garmin series. But maybe I am missing something.

Does anyone know if there is a generalization that can be made about detail lost when using shoot through hull transducers? Do you lose enough detail that fish are harder to see or distinguish?n keep in mind, I have about zero life experience with these things.

Chad A
 
Chad be careful which chartplot map system you get. I bought a lowrance plotter and, with preloaded software, it would not recognize the ditches we hunt in. Garmin, with pre-loaded software, does recognize the skinny water with decent accuracy.
 
[font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]Have you had any experience to compare Navionics to the Blue Charts software? [/font]
Click to expand...

Chad,

Plenty of experience and frustration with Garmin ha ha. Their charts are good for inshore charting from what I can tell, but they lack the definition and updates that I have found on the navionics charts. At least in our area.

My biggest sticking point, which won't be an issue for you on your duck boat, is that garmin charts were basically worthless for fishing the little lumps and bumps we target in 20-40 fathoms for bluefin tuna. I would go to a store and play with the different units and see what the charts look like for you area. I have the navionics + charts which allow you to download updates whenever they update the cartography for your area.

You can see what the navionics ones look like using their website: http://webapp.navionics.com/?lang=en

This is the setup I'm running now, might be a bit much for a duck boat!

IMG_2864.jpg

 
I would agree that previous programs where lacking in the offshore software of the Garmins, but that's what a bottom finder is for.

Garmin's newer software is much more accurate than previous programs (at least here in Florida)

Bottom line, it's what u are happy with.

This topic comes up everywhere & it's no different than:

Ford vs Chevy
9mm vs 45 ACP
Glock vs S&W (even though Smiths are an exact copy of the perfect weapons system lol)
 
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