Being the guy with muddy feet and walking the bank I finally took the plunge and got myself a small boat (Bass Hunter). Love it I'm out there now

Next step I want a depth finder/fish finder... I've been doing my homework reading all info this site, tips etc.

I'm fishing shallow water most all the time. My guess 10ft or less. I'm lucky enough to have a game & fish lake that's over 6000 thousand acres, most people tell me the average depth is 6ft deep with 12 to 18ft holes from old lake beds. Several creek beds and millions of stumps.

I'm leaning toward something like a Piranhamax 240 tri-beam, placing more importance on width of coverage than depth. Now its time to ask the folks on my favorite web site for your input. Please keep in mind I'm not putting a Thousand dollar system on a $700. dollar boat

In my option the Hummingbird 525 or 535 are the best buy for the money:

Big screen

240 vertical pixels x 240H (525)

320 vertical pixels x 320 horizontal pixels (535)

High contrast 5" LCD with 12 level grayscale.

Precision 20 degree single beam sonar delivers better bottom detail.

1600 watts peak-to-peak with 200 watts RMS power output (525)

2000 watt peak-to-peak power output (535)

I agree with Catt.  The 525 offers a lot of bang for the buck.

With your emphasis on wider coverage under the boat the PiranhaMAX 240 is a good choice.  It sees an area under the boat over 4 times greater than the 525 or the 535.  The only other model that would be better is the 575 quadrabeam system, but it has a cost of $249 but has much higher resolution a 5 inch display and greater power while still having 90 degrees of underwater coverage.

Something else to think about when getting a widebeam finder for shallow water is that you will miss many things that a narrow beam finder will show. For example if your beam is hitting in the middle and on the  edges of a small creek channel you depth finder may not show the actual depth of the creek and breakline or even show the channel at all but show an average of everything the beam is hitting making a well defined narrow creek channel with a big drop off look much different than what is actualy there. In shallow water I want a low power unit with a narrow beam to get the most detail of the bottom. I know guys who get old low power depthfinders that havent been made in years just because they give a better picture of whats down there in shallow water. I am not familiar with quad beams, duel beams  etc. but from what I have heard they do much the same thing and take an average of what is under the boat from all the beams giving more bottom coverage but with much less of what is actually there.

The multiple beam systems use several transducers to give you wider coverage and still allow you to see how the bottom is laid out, especially on the quad systems.

At the depths you're talking about a single beam will give you better detail  

THanks for the input, guess I got more homework to do.... :-/

I have the 575 Quad Beam.  I can choose which beam I want to use.  

200 khz narrow

80khz wide

200/80 combined

200/80 combined and the two 255hz side beams in three separate windows.  Lots of info at once.  Effectively left, right and center.

I would guess any of the 500 series would let you chose between 200 khz and 80 khz.