Hello. Recently purchased a Humminbird Helix 10 SI. Trying to decide on just the Lakemaster chip or if I should spend the extra $75 for the Smart Strike features... It looks great on the TV shows, just wondering if it's really worth the extra $...

I went down this path last summer...had been circling the Smart Strike chip for a couple of years, wanted to upgrade my hardware first...

 

My thought was: I don't really need it in water I fish all the time...but that'd be a great way to test it...so I bought the Wisconsin Smart Strike chip to give it a shot on a lake I fish at least every other week or so.

 

First time out, I tried it right after I caught my first fish of the day...and it showed me all of the spots I'd normally try...and two I hadn't thought of...one of those was close...so I ran over, gave it a shot...and caught fish...

 

Ordered the Lake of the Woods chip as soon as I got home.  On a lake that size, ~ a million acres, you can't possibly know all the spots, nor are the paper maps at a scale that allows you to pick spots based on structure you can see.  Even the LakeMaster chips ahve to be zoomed to a point where it's impossible to see what you need to see.

 

Smart Strike worked as advertised and helped get us on fish.

 

It also helped me on Wisconsin lakes I hadn't fished, or was learning.