300rum

Halo dear boater friends
This spring I have decided to finally upgrade to some very good fishfinder. As I find myself already being advanced fisherman I had an image what are my prime needs. I usually fish common dentex and amberjacks trolling with live squid. Sometimes I fish tunas too. I must mentionautumn squid fishing too as the live squid is my prime bait. So my idea was to enhance my fishing results with new powerful fishfinder. The good fishing locations in my area are becoming very rare due to overfishing. So we areall forced to search for new „unspoiled“ locations. This new locations tend to be deeper and deeper. 10-20 years ago very good fishing spots were easily found in the depths from 15-35meters but nowadays we usually fish in the depth range of 50-80 meters sometimes up to 120 meters. So now we are in the need of having very good fishfinder capable of detecting structure at the depths of 100m. (Not to mention detecting the fish at that depths too). To find fish the first step is to detectstony formation in the sandy bottomat this depths. We all know fish like stony formations! With traditional type of fishfinder we must cross over the stone structure to detect it. But with side scan now it is possible to detect that structure formations along the sides of the boat. That sounded great and I have started searching for the most suitable fishfinder. As I use my two motor boats to go fishing I wanted one device without extra sounder devices which will be easily removable from one boat to another.
I have spent over a month reading about high-tech fishfinders-sounders and transducers. I have read tons of articles and reviews for Hummingbird, Simrad, Raymarine, Garmin and Furuno. Hummingbird at first sounded very attractive but I have discovered depth limitations of its side scan. Soon I have realized that none of the brands offers me the side scan at the depths of 100m and the side range of minimum 150-200m on each side. But then I have noticed Garmin is launching new xsv series of its GPSMAP device. And they offer 500W side scan transducer GT51 at 260kHz capable of scanning up to 220 meters on each side and up to depths of 200meters. I have double checked other brands do they offer similar or better options but found none. None of other brandshave so strong side scan feature!
So that is why I have ordered GARMIN GPSMAPxsv device. I did not wanted huge display as my conclusion was that with zoom option I will be able to obtain the same quality of picture as with devices with bigger displays (this I have not proved and this is to be experimentally proved when I get bigger unit to compare with). So I picked up GPSMAP 7408xsv (7608xsv), an 8inch display unit instead of 7410xsv(7610xsv) unit with 10inch display. Maybe I was wrong not to buy 10 inch display unit but as I said the idea was to use zoom option when needed better picture.
I installed the GT51 TM transducer on both boats this summer and I was really impressed with my first trip. I was cruising at 20knots at 100m depth and I was able to see stony structure on my left side at the range of 150meters from my boat!! IT WAS AWSOME !! Soon I have discovered that with simple touch screen clicks I can store a waypoint over that structure and just easily return to that spot later whenever I like. Let me explain this great feature in details. When I get structure picture on the screen at some range left or right of the boat I simply click on it and the software offers me to store thewaypoint positioned over that structure! That was what I have been searching for! I post here a lot of screenshots. As I was mainly fishing over medium depths 40-80m the majority of screenshots comes from this range. Later I will post screenshots from greater depths to clearly show the high end limits of this transducer.
We can talk about other advanced options of this GARMIN GPSMAPxsv device but I do not find them being crucial for choosing this device as I presume other brands like Simrad, Furuno, Raymarine, Hummingbird all offer more or less similar features. I must admit that Garmin GPSMAP xsv ergonomics and user friendly software with good quality touchscreen gives very very nice results and nice feeling.
I must say few words about fish detection. Fish detection is sort of magic learned out of huge experience and only combination of experience can be accurate in detecting and recognition of fish. Detecting fish issue with traditional sounder is well known to all of us „advanced“ fishermen and I would not talk here about it. I will just say that for the best results I have paired Airmar B260 transducer with Garmin GT51TM. In this combination I use traditional sounder from B260 and side scan from GT51. It gives me fabulous results. B260 has extremely good response time, the feature that is usually hidden and not to be comparable between similar transducers. My next experiment will show bottom separation capability of this two transducers. The GT51 has CHIRP feature butlower power and sensitivity then B260. So it will interesting to see results.
Detecting fish with side scan is more interesting to me. I have detected dolphins few times (but not recorded that screenshot) 100 meters aside of the boat. But my intention is to detect tunas with this high power 260kHz side scan transducer ranging up to 220m on each side. My dear friend who is top Big game professional assures me that I will not be able to detect tunas due to their usual high speed. But I am eager to see the experimental results. If we prove that with this transducer we will be able to detect tunas at the range of up to 100-200m on each side of the boat that will be revolution for Big Gamers worldwide ! They will not be left to wait for tunas to come under the boat to detect them, but they will be able to scan the area of up to 200m around the boat! Lets wait for actual results.
I am eager to test high end limits of this Garmin combination and I will post other screenshot results as soon as I make them.

I hope I made interesting review with opening few questions that deserve good answers.

semperfifishing

Welcome on your first post...and very interesting.
Thank you for taking the time to share and posting.

Are you from Croatia?...around Pomena,Polace, or Sobra?

DreamCatcher14

Glad you find yourself already an advanced fisherman because you would not make it as an English teacher.

keizerh

and how is your French,German,Spanish or Dutch?

keizerh

Great first post 300rum!

jaxy

great post 300rum .@Gil, youre the man ,yes you are correct its island of mljet in croatia

Get Hooked Up

Hard not to be Croatia based upon posted lat long. It is a stunning part of the world and not many people ever realize that.

kmoose

Spectacular images! Thanks for posting.

mahimahi99

300rum, welcome and thanks for taking the time to post your screenshot results!

However when I read the title I expected to see side scan and sonar screenshots from Raymarine, Simrad and Humminbird as well from the same depths. ;?
So actually your title should read:
"Garmin vs Simrad vs Humminbird vs Raymarine! Garmin wins my heart!"

Chessyman

Dreamcatcher14

I think taking a cheap shot at a persons writing is in poor taste.

300rum

Thanks friends
Sorry for bad English.

I have not posted Simrad, Raymarine nor Huminnbird screenshots as their sidescan transducers does not cover depths over 60m (200feet)!! (they do not have either 260kHz sidescan feature)!
So Garmin did not won my heart in this case but Garmin only fulfilled my need of deep water structure scan!
If you guys can prove that other brands can perform as Garmin at this depths I will be glad to hear that!
That was prime reason I wrote this post!
Lets compare Garmin, Simrad, Raymarine, Humminbird and Furuno (commercial) devices in this side scanning feature!?


And you are right. My paradise is called Croatian Adriatic! Island of Mljet is one of our pearls. I am proud to be able to enjoy Croatian islands whole year long....


Thank you for your help in this topic
Very kind regards

Get Hooked Up

Your English is light years ahead of my Croatian! Welcome aboard

semperfifishing

Apsolutno nema potrebe da appoplgize za vaš engleski .... kada je u pitanju fishing..we svi govore isti jezik .

Također ... postavljati neke fotografije vašeg broda ... i ribe iz svog područja.

.............

Absolutely no need to apologise for your english..... when it comes to fishing......we all speak the same language.

Also..post some photos of your boat...and the fish from your area.

Gil

Badbagger

Ditto !

dk2429

Garmin for the win!

dekarate

huminbird recently won a patent violation lawsuit which may affect the availability of other manufacturers products for sidescan in the future

300rum

Sidescan is the vital feature for detecting rocky fishing spots.
That is why I opened this post.

Lets see is this Garmin with GT51 the best option avalaible on the market for deep water side scaning or there is something better?;?

(My first choice was Hummingbird but it performs (sidescan) good only in shalow waters...)



rgds

TroyBoy30

it will not

peterSnow

I have double checked other brands do they offer similar or better options but found none. None of other brandshave so strong side scan feature! ??

I bought the CP200 from Raymarine when i came out a year ago - and i am capable of seeing rock, fish, wrecks in a 180° circle up to 600 feet away from the boat. Just like Raymarine states :

http://www.raymarine.com/view/?id=10308

It holds bottom up to around 20 knots aswell.

Actually i have found a lot of fishing hotspots, i would never have found without the CP200.

abbor

The Humminbird patent is good so I don't see how Garmin could design around it. It's covering integration of 2D and sidescanning elements in one transducer, integration of scanning sonar electronics with the display and having a GPS data available in the sonar processing unit. The only important claim Garmin is not breaching is the length of the sidescanning transducer elements.

Navico reached a settlement with Humminbird reading the same patent claims.