FISHFINDER / GPS units for a boat

Mainey
Not sure about other brands but seems the Garmin range is either Fish Finder or GPS ,
If thats so then you might need 2 units , one for Navigation and one for finding fish.

Fish Finder Info

Marine GPS

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what type of boat, what depths and styles of fishing, and most importantly what budget?

Straight up, keep away from the new Lowrance HDS stuff until they get it sorted. Many tales of woe so far with them.

If you can afford the space, separate gps/sounder units are always better, though not always practical.

My two bobs worth,

I have owned several boats and looking at the tinny I would be looking for something compact.
A good colour sounder like the Garmin 400 series are very good and reliable.
I would source a handheld Garmin GPS which can be shared with the car. Both Garmin products come with 12 volts leads and custom attachments.
I would mount both on an adjustable Boss mount which can be positioned to be easily seen or tucked into the gunnals when not needed to avoid damage.

I would also get a small 7-10 amp hours UPS battery to run it all.

Tamery

I like the Navman Trackfish 6500 or 6600 - A good unit and easy to use

Best of luck & Cheers

Mainey, it sounds like you it covered by your own research.

I have a LowranceThis one Previously had an Eagle Cuda low end combo, with mono screen, which was good for the price, but the new one with colour screen is great.

Great set up. Easy to use. Mapping is very good (we have all Australia card)

At your price you will do well. I think I paid about $1,200 18 months ago. Don't remember if that included the map card.

Dual frequency transducer and sounder is handy, but not essential. Good mapping is important. The Lowance is excellent in most areas, but a bit patchy (though adequate) in remote areas like remote NT where we fish).

At the price you are looking at, any of the late models from the big names will be OK.

I have a 3.95 tinnie and have it mounted on a RAM mount on the rear thwart beside my seat. It can be turned any way, including towards the front thwart. Only problem is when wearing polarised sunnies, the screen is hard to see unless fully backlighted.

Norm C

NOrm C

Mainey
I have done offshore fishing in WA for over 30 years and have always used Lawrence products with great success.Irecently changed frrom the Lawrence LMS300 to the Lawrence LCX-27C which I have found to be a very reliabe and efficient unit. Looking at your boat Iwould say that all you need is a good split screen unit with as large a screen as you can afford.Dual frequency transducer for a boat that size is not necessary.The most important thing with all type sounders is learning how to use them properly which only comes with practice ,as you can have he greatest sounder in the world and you will catch nothing if you do not know how to use it properly.

Mainey,
Most(nearly all) dual frequency transdusers are 200hz and 50hz.The 200hz is very good for up to 100meters depth where the 50hz takes over above 100meter depth.This is a general rule so you only need a 200hz transducer for what you will be doing.The 50hz will give you a wider coverage in shalow water but with not nearly as great detail.Hope this helps with your choice.

I've had nil experience with the new hummingbird side sonar, but have read some awesome things about them for river and shallow work (like the ability to literally see the fish etc. They showed screen dumps of a fishing rod on the bottom clear as day, and one of a croc and some barra too). Hummingbirds have never had a gread rep for the deeper water - their beams have always been too broad and they get false returns (hence their nickname - liarbirds) out past 100 odd metres. Maybe that's been rectified in the newer models.

Personally I'd look at one of the furuno colour sounders for the money - they have better heat sinks than most which is important when you're cranking the gain up. They aren't as pretty and have less buttons, but they do what they are meant to do very well. And they are genuinely waterproof which is a must have in your situation.

My all time fave sounder has been the JRC ff50 - if you can find a second hand one it'll serve you well. Keep away from the plot 500 though(combo sounder/plotter), because the toggles and menus are difficult at best.

Plotters like others have said will depend on who does the best software for the areas you fish.

I'm running raytheon gear at the moment - the sounder is good, but the navionics software isn't as good as others on the market for my area.

The ability to overzoom on a chart is good to have so that you can still have charts on the screen whilst zoomed in on a small working area.

to date have not heard any negatives about the 480 x 640 pixel Raymarine A50D Fishfinder/Chartplotter combo, so that looks like it's a decent unit and comes preloaded with All Australia maps too.

Next Perth trip it will be coming back home with me :-)

Maîneÿ . . .

Well it's finished, is just like having a 'tom tom' for the ocean, with all the towns, bays, beachs and launching ramps shown on screen for the complete Australian coastline.

It will be recharged by the solar system, hence the 'anderson plug' connection Araldited to the top of the battery.


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Image Could Not Be FoundMaîneÿ . . .

Revised portable 12v battery connection.

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Image Could Not Be FoundMaîneÿ . . .

Have had the fishfinder/gps now for a few weeks, so I can give information on the performance of the Raymarine unit in general service.

Last week I went out and saw four (4) fish travelling together on the LCD screen, yes, actually see the individual fish and the distance down they are swimming at too, stopped and dropped the line, landed only 2 of the 4 fish in less than a minute, the other two vanished off the screen while we were busy, so we moved on to find more, definately beats sitting in a boat waiting for a fish to come to the baits when you can clearly see there are no fish there anyway.

The gps screen shows submerged rocks and known wrecks too, and around wrecks there are fish :)

The round swivel base is permantely attached to the seat, the actual electronics and screen etc is attached by a quick release mechanism and I just fit it when I take the boat out.

Image Could Not Be FoundMaîneÿ . . .

A quick update on how the Raymarine is working for me, we were going out to the 8 mile reef in 32 foot of water at a 'brisk pace' and I saw the outlines of four (4) fish showing @ 20 foot depth on the fishfinder screen, I did a U turn an stopped above them, dropped 2 baits into the water and with-in seconds pulled out 2 large fish, they just fitted into the landing net, they were Norwest blowies, so did not keep them. Yes have photo's too.

Maîneÿ . . .