I am buying my first fish finder this weekend.  It will be mounted on a 15 ft jon boat and used in small lakes and ponds.  These areas are very weedy with some grass on top and lots of thick weed beds 1-2 feet below the surface.  Most of the areas are less than 10 ft deep.  I am considering the following:

Lowrance X96

Eagle 320

Eagle 480

Once again I have never used a fish finder and would appreciate any advice I can get.

I would get the one I could get the best deal on.  The 480 will give you a little better seperation but if you can get one of the 320's for a lot less money, You really won't see that much difference.  Iether of the three will make you a good sonar.

As for the 320's, it's kinda a no brainer, get the Lowrance over the Eagle it they are both about the same price.

They will have newer, better models out by the time you get one of these figured out anyway.

Best way to learn, take it and the book to the lake and spend severa hours playing with different settings.  Learn to set it up in the manual mode so you control depth,  sensitivity/gain, gray line and so you can  control the clutter at the top of the screen.   The very first thing is to Turn that fish ID crap off.  Learn to use the settings in the manual mode and it will give you a much better/clearer screen and still show you what you need to see down there.  Set right and you can see a 1/4 oz jig being hopped off the bottom in 30' of water without all that other clutter in there.

I have the X96 for a bow mount and it works great and very simple to operate.

get like lowrance 110HD on the front of that jon boat ;D .

I would get like a lowrance x52 thats a pretty good unit it will show the bottom real good. it will also show brush and every thing you need to see. and there not hard to use there real simple.

Either one of the three he listed will out perform the X-52. The units he listed are very good units and will work just fine for someone just getting started. They are above the entry level X-52. Probably in the lower mid level range. He should be more than happy with which ever he gets.

I should mention, the X-52 is a popular unit to do an in console mount because it smaller and can be switch to a real time flasher, but the performance and resolution will not match the other units.

Thanks for the advice.  I went with the 320 and spent the difference in lures.