jcoholich

I would suggest a lowrance mark 4hdi. It is in your price range gives you the new dual hybrid transducer and is also a GPS.... Only down side is it's monochrome not color.

If it were me I like dock fishing and road beds so an area like this that has docks a roadbed and plenty of depth change would be a go to area for me.

IF you are going to be in a particular region and want a preloaded chip go with the Navionics Hotmaps, if you travel wide or want the ability to select the areas you want on your chip the Navionics + chip will save you some bucks.

Also to add to the subject, I was at Icast this year and they are in the works to making the Vexilar WIFI sonar the ability to link into the app so you can also view a fish finder and overlay depth on the mobile apps. Its a pretty sweet deal.

While i was at Icast in orlando this past week I saw something that i really think is going to take people by storm. Its a wifi sonar paired with the navionics boating app on Iphone and Andriod. Basically by using a black box paired with your smartphone you can have a gps sonar unit in the palm of your hand. The sonar is made by Vexilar so its a really high quality picture. This was the first thing like that that i have seen and thought it was worth sharing with people. I am not sure how much is really out there about it but you might be able to find some videos that were shot at Icast.

Does anyone have any experience with this new rod company on the market known as River Creek Rods. I have looked at them on line and like their design not using cork or foam and using carbon fiber and fiberglass grips to increase sensitivity. But i wanted to see if there are any opinions on these rods or if anyone has used them before.

http://www.navionics.com/sites/www.navionics.com/files/documents/Mobile%20Compatibility%20Guide.pdf This is the navionics supported device guide.

I have one that I have been using for 2 years in tournament fishing. In my experience I have been doing better since adding this unit to my boat. I have had instances where I watched fish come up on Sonar to the bottom of my trolling motor where I have the speaker mounted and follow under my boat. I am not 100 percent sure it works but I have had positive results since I put the hydrowave on my boat.

I read recently that raymarine units can now record sonarlogs and be uploaded online through Navionics... Has anyone actually tried to do this yet? I am wondering if this is something that is easy to do with a raymarine unit and if the quality of recorded data is as accurate as that of the units that have been able to do this since the beginning. Any input on this subject is welcome.

I have used the wireless wifi one and it works pretty well. Its simple to install and links with your smartphone easily. Also screen is crisp and the sonar is easy to control on the app, if you want to demo it install the app and run on simulator and you can get a feel for how it works.

I have used an elite 7, HDS, and the new touches... With a price range like that I believe the elite 7 will do everything you need it to! It's really easy to use and everything can be done in 1 transducer. And if you get the gold one it gives you a free Navionics gold chip also

Yes the free Navionics map cards are still included with them as long as the package you are looking at specifies it's a gold package.

I just use the normal transom transducer mount and use a ss pipe clamp feed it through the bracket and tighten down to the trolling motor head

In order for you to change the screen color you have to be on the screen that you want the color to change on go into the menu and screen and there should be a bunch of color options. Also how do you have the transducer mounted?

I have both chips the lake insight chip and the Navionics Charts and I rarely use my insight chip much anymore with all the new data being uploaded by sonarlogs. I know there are many more people using the Navionics SonarLogs than the Lowrance Insight Genesis.

Has anyone out there ever heard of the company River Creek Rods? If so does anyone know much about them or have any feedback on these rods?

I have tournament fished in the college level the last years and this is my first year running the hydrowave and I have personally noticed that my fishing has gotten better and the fish quality has increased. I am not sure if the unit works or not but i will never go fishing without it now.

They are a great unit for the money, I would make sure to go online and make sure you put the newest update in them because it allows them to work with Navionics chips and fixes some of the earlier bugs to improve smooth performance! I run a touch, HDS normal button, and an elite 7hdi. Like all them!

The new update card will let you select your area upto 2gb and will give you the SonarCharts layer. If you use the majority of the lakes on the chart I would suggest getting the new south chart right now you can pick a platinum up for 170 till end of month and it comes with a year of updates. Also if your running it in a hummingbird unit the community layer will not show up unless it's the new omni.

Same internals just bigger screen size nothing else changes.

I agree with jbsoonerfan, I run HDS units on my boat but I run the elite 7HDI ram mounted for mapping and if you can fit the 7 inch screen it is worth the money to get the bigger screen.

I work for a local marine around the Pittsburgh Area and I personally have both units on display were I work and the Lowrance HDI units are the best buy for the money. One transducer give you both the broadband sonar along with the downscan sonar... The Garmin echo units do not include downscan sonar just your everyday broadband. Also the screen resolution is much better in the lowrance units than the Garmin units. Also if mapping is a big deal to you and you have a smartphone you can buy the Navionics App on iTunes or the Google Pay store and get the most up to date maps on the market at the push of a button.

In that case usually if you adjust the sensitivity option in the sonar settings it will fix this problem. I would start by turning the sensitivity all the way up to max or 100 percent and then back it off till the screen clears up a lot and majority of the clutter goes away. If you have to do a total reset on the unit to restore factory settings hold the plus minus and power at the same time this will restart the unit.

Also the gen 2 have structure mapping which overlays your structure scan onto your map screen, they work with the new lowrance spotlight transducer, and also work with the insight genesis mapping program.

Yes, Navionics is making the move to non preloaded chips and in the near future will be selling only chips like the navionics + and update. You would use your new update chip in the unit and that would be the chip that you put into the computer for the years worth of freshest updates. The old chip will still be able to be used but it will not contain any of the sonarcharts on it just the new chip will have those features. Just when you load the card up make sure you take the community edits option off because Humminbird does not support that option and it will only take up space.