High end shallow water finders <200ft!

[Lead_Head]

So who is the best in terms of reliability.

I'm talking color, high-res screens, fresh and salt.

I want feedback from actual users, and people that have used a unit for more than a year!!!!!

If you don't have $800.00 invested in a unit, you don't qualify.

Leave comments about GPS elsewhere, I'm talking just about fishfinder ability!

Could I Lead off???:

Lowrance LX16 CI: Awesome when it works...Subject to engine noise above idle. Hard to read screen in sunlight. At low speed you can see your bait at 40 feet deep. Sorry connectors...even in the second try Lowrance.. Connectors not sealed and can't grip the twist ring at all! Menus are too deep and hard to get to....requires a college education to get to basic fishfinder uses.

Didn't mean to be negative about Lowrance, but would like to have honest opinions from actual users of other models or brands.

Lead_head

[Thom]

If you have an enclosed area out of direct sunlight you can use a plain Furuno FCV-667 in 200 feet of water and get a better look at the bottom, and any fish inbetween it and the boat, than you will out of any LCD fish finder made, and you can do it for less than $800

If you want the best in LCD you should look at the Furuno 582L using either the B256 or M256 transducer. The combination will be absolutly reliable and probably the easiest and most convienent fish finder to use you will ever put your hands on. I know these things are generally thought of as deep water machines but you put one in anything between about 15~250 feet on high frequency and you simply will not believe how good they are. Down side is this combination is going to cost you very close to $2,000 assuming you install everything yourself.

What your two grand gets you is knobs to control range scale, mode, and gain, a 7" screen that is easily visable in direct sun light. Virtually every feature available in any fish finder anywhere.

Thom

[seahawg]

If money is no object, look at Furuno Navnet. The Fish finder module is the same as the highest end individual Furuno 582L model. Navnet supports multiple transducers. With power set to 1kw, the 50/200 kHz transducer will be good for depths of 10 to 4000 feet. The Sart Sensor transducer is good for 2 inches to 100 feet.

[Mad Hunt]

quote:The Sart Sensor transducer is good for 2 inches to 100 feet.

Tell me more about this "Sart Sensor". Good to 2 inches?!?!?

Kevin

[seahawg]

The Smart Sensor was designed by Furuno for less than 10 foot depths. They came up with it because of the poor performance of their other transducers in shallow water. I've been in less than a foot of water under the transducer and saw it changing in one tenth increments.