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I'm in the market for a GPS fishfinder. I'm looking at both Humminbird 788c and the Lowrance HDS5. An example of how I want to use it is being able to fish the edge of drop off and keep my boat on it. Are these units accurate enough to let me follow the drop off. Also which one would you recommend?
I have a 5m and a 5x. The M died. I sent it back to Lowrance and they sent me a new unit.
Fuctionaly they work great. I'm not familiar with the Humminbird line.
TCM...Okay here comes the I'm an idiot part. I fish a large lake, usually windy, after I catch a fish, get it off the hook and in the live well the boat has blown off course and I get disoreented, as a result I lose the dropoff I'm trying to fish. What I'm hoping for is that the elctronics ( with enhanced maps) are accurate enough to allow me to quickly find and follow the drop off again by using the GPS maps. Or am I expecting too much?
If you have a GPS, you can consider to use the quick Man over board (MOB) key. I know it is not what it is designed for, but that this a very short (usually one press key) procedure helping you find back your original position. Or just keep the visible track on the GPS screen.
You will also see your boats trail on the plotter and can back track very easily. Some days when I'm finished fishing the plotter looks like an Etchasketch (sp). Great tool for drifting over the same area repeatedly.
Lowrance is comong out with a side scan soon. Will also have a 3d "look down" mode along with the ability to mark structure on the chart plotter by clicking on the image on the fish finder. Check thier site
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Any fishfinder will do that.
Not much of an argument that Lowrance 2D sonar is superior to
Humminbird..
I disagree. You have to be specific regarding models and transducers. Humminbird 2D sonar in their cheap models sucks..(but is as good or better than any of the same price level competitors) but in the top of the line models is as good as any competing brand in the same price range with the factory supplied transducers.
You can make any fishfinder look better by adding a better transducer.
Compared to a HDS almost everything is better on the Lowrance unit.
Compared to previous generation Lowrance. Test going from shallow water to 1000' (in a clear lake) and see whats happen. Using 200kHz Lowrance will track the bottom all the way without problems. Halfway down the Humminbird will losse bottom and start searching.
Humminbird is probably a nice unit for shallow waters, but it's defenitly not a deep water machine. Humminbird tech's have visited the deep Norwegian fjords to try to improve the deep water performance, I don't think they have had much luck yet. The deepest fjord in Norway is about 4300' deep. Typically in less than 5 minutes you can go from 100' to several thousand feets, that a good testlab for sounder development.
Compared to a HDS almost everything is better on the Lowrance unit.
Compared to previous generation Lowrance. Test going from shallow water to 1000' (in a clear lake) and see whats happen. Using 200kHz Lowrance will track the bottom all the way without problems. Halfway down the Humminbird will losse bottom and start searching.
Humminbird is probably a nice unit for shallow waters, but it's defenitly not a deep water machine. Humminbird tech's have visited the deep Norwegian fjords to try to improve the deep water performance, I don't think they have had much luck yet. The deepest fjord in Norway is about 4300' deep. Typically in less than 5 minutes you can go from 100' to several thousand feets, that a good testlab for sounder development.
Oh baloney. Norway, who cares. Maybe Lowrance needs to learn some quality control and customer service from Humminbird since the reliability of Lowrance is in the bottom of that fjord in "Norway."
Oh baloney. Norway, who cares. Maybe Lowrance needs to learn some quality control and customer service from Humminbird since the reliability of Lowrance is in the bottom of that fjord in "Norway."
If you had read what I wrote you would have seen my Lowrance vs Humminbird comparison was done in freshwater not in a fjord.
I have a HDS and a FCV-620 in my boat and a Humminbird collecting dust in my basement.
I guess more advanced fishfinders are developed and manufactured in Norway than what's done in US.
Agree with part of your post, but do think you are a little over the top to take "oh baloney, Norway, who cares" and turn it into an "attack" on someone's "country of origin." Sheesh (and I'm half of Norwegian extraction....mom's an Erickson.}
My Humminbird has 800 x 480 pixels.. 8" screen. The Lowrance hd5 is a 5" screen with 480 x 480.
I agree that the lowrance downscan looks better than the humminbird side scan, but comparing the images of the 2d sonar - I think the humminbird display looks better, sharper and clearer. I fish in water up to 150 feet deep - so to me it doesn't matter that lowrance can reach thousands of feet deep.
A better comparison would have been the HD8 to the humminbird.. these are about the same price, and the HD8 has better resolution - 800 x 600.
Just a pity the leisure part of Simrad is not longer a part of Kongsberg Group.
Just curious, what model Humminbird is collecting dust in your basement? Since Humminbird was bought by Johnson Outdoors, they have moved light years ahead. I believe they are geared more towards freshwater fishermen, rather than salt though. Being that you are in Europe, I'm sure you deal with a different customer service than a US Lowrance customer. Here a call to Lowrance customer service can be a 1 hour wait on the phone. Call Garmin or Humminbird and it's 10 minutes or less. Lowrance has some great technogy,but since they were bought out a few years ago, and their quality has sunken drastically!
I have have used the latest and greatest Humminbird units and last years Lowrance LCX units in great detail. I am a fan of both. I fish shallow and both do a great job but i have a little more detail on the Bird than i do the Lowrance since bird started the "TVG or Switchfire" feature that is downloadable on their site. Deeper water up to 200' i think is a tie becuase on my bird's 1000w i have seen some pretty good detail and fish arches but deeper than that i think goes to lowrance but keep in mind if you really fish deep water you shouldnt be in a Lowrance either as their are much better choices for this.
Like i said i do like lowrance a lot too. Just a few nights ago on my friends bass boat i was able to see my drop shot with 20lb power pro and a 6lb flurocarbon leader in 30' of water. We were able to see the 6lb fluro leader too. I am able to do this with my bird as well after the switchfire update. The bird shows more detail in the weeds and reads bottom shallower before losing signal. My uncles C-80 with airmar ducer doest not come close to this level of detail in the shallows but blows us away in the deep. I think Lowrances chartplottter is a little better but the birds is adequate and cant even answer that question properly because i have not seen what a platinum card looks like in a bird unit.
I have never used the new HDS broadband units and they do look they will be incredible and i am sure better than both technoligies that i talked about above. The structure scan looks great but its not out yet so who knows what will happen with that......its not out and not proven. I only know one person who owns a hds set up (will remain nameless) and wants to rip it out of their boat because its plagues with problems. The HDS system will probably be on my next boat but I will wait till at least 2010 to buy it as they need to work out the bugs in their units and CS dept.
Oh, as far as customer service my bird is currently in route to the bird factory for service (sent out this morn). I called yesterday and they answered on the 4th ring. I was never put on hold. Took about 4 minutes from start to finish to get my RA#. Even though my unit is a 2006 model and out of warranty they agreed to waive the $258.00 service fee. Sweet!!
Go to any bassmaster, flw, redfish cup site and you will see lowrance and humminbird split 50/50. Just a few years ago this was dominated totally by lowrance but this changed quickly when bird came out with the side scan. These people pay thier bills fishing and you will never ever see Ray, Furuno etc with the exception of the a few of the red fish guys. If it works for them it works for me.
Airmar just came out with a new line of shallow water ducers for other units like Ray and Furuno so i bet more people start using them.
Its not true that humminbird hasnt had any further development since they invented the side scan. Their development went to improving it. The ducers are higher power than when they first came out in 2004. There are more levels of detail to get a better picture. Yahoo forums has a great side imaging site where you can see unbelievable screen shots from real users not just Bird engineers. The 2d sonar is now better with switch fire giveng you a more detailed broadband type picture with the ability to turn the switchfire off to go back to the traditional monolog picture if there is too much zoo plankton etc in the water.
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TCM...Okay here comes the I'm an idiot part. I fish a large lake, usually windy, after I catch a fish, get it off the hook and in the live well the boat has blown off course and I get disoreented, as a result I lose the dropoff I'm trying to fish. What I'm hoping for is that the elctronics ( with enhanced maps) are accurate enough to allow me to quickly find and follow the drop off again by using the GPS maps. Or am I expecting too much?
The GPS will get you back there, just use the MOB feature but you can also use the old proven trick of throwing out one of the plastic markers with line and weight on it and you will know exactly where you want to be.
Personally I like the Lowrance over Hummingbird, I have seen the the side scan and it is great but I think it works better for bass fisherman than anyone for the most part
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Humminbird vs. Lowrance GPS Fishfinder 
