Boat Electronics
 

I just purchased a used bay boat to start fishing the bay and marshes and it did not have any electronics included. What should I get on a very small budget.

humminbird DI (down imaging) nice unit.

what about gps? hand held or all in one unit?

Is this the cajunblaze on YouTube?

No, but made me go look!

its a GPS/Fishfinder combo. Think its a 592 himmunbird or something like that.

http://store.humminbird.com/products...1i_HD_DI_Combo

Check this one out.

This is just my opinion.
Hummingbird makes great depth/fish finders, but only so/so entry model GPS's and combo's.
They are not as user friendly as Lowrance, Furuno, and Garmin.
The higher end Hummingbirds are better but entry, level not so good.
I have an entry level Hummingbird on my Cobia, it came with it when I bought the boat new. If you want it, I can sell it, cheap, you just have to buy a transducer for it. It is a 383 or something like that.

If buying entry level, get a Hummingbird fish finder, cheap, and get a Garmin GPS.
Raymarine really sux in the user friendly department too.

I have had Hummingbird, Eagle, Lowrance, Magellan, Furuno and Garmin's in the past.
I think Lowrance bought out Eagle, both were good.
I am not a big fan of the Garmin fish finders though.

If I were to buy a combo, it would probably be a Lowrance.

The Hummingbird that came on my offshore boat actually fell apart due to rough weather.

Define cheap budget?

For budget friendly look at the lowrance line. User friendly, great for inshore fishing, and best bang for buck.


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i have a hummingbird 587ci($400). I like it, I didn't find it too hard to use at least. The down imaging is AWESOME!! You can really see the detail on the bottom. Whatever you do buy, I do suggest getting a down imaging or side imaging(little more expensive) unit. The gps tracking on the 587 isn't as good as the the tracking on our lowrance 520 though, and the lowrance is an older unit.

The new garmin gps is sweet!

doliver an myself have both had the eagle gps/fishfinder combo's on previous boats and work real well for a first time unit and user friendly. Im not sure if they still make them but they were at academy for a decent price. I have a garmin on my new boat and love it, very easy to use.


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Academy always throws there Lowrance combo unit on sale as a "Hot Buy" item, it is model under the HDS - 5 but is still a great unit. Usually $200 off, watch the sale papers, usually under $400.

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Was thinking about a $150 fishfinder and a $150 hand held gps, that way if the battery died on the boat I would still have gps. So I was budgeting for around $300.00. I did find a new lowrance m68c which is being replaced by the elite 4 series for around $200.00 and it has both. It doesn't have the down imaging which seems to be very attractive to a beginner.

Edit to add: Does it make a difference between color and grayscale as far as using it in bright conditions or at night. Should I get two units? Also, do you have to buy the maps?

The m68c is a great little unit for the money. It is limited on mapping and you can not add more maps to it. You can see the color in the sun but it does wash some. The sounder works very well for shallow water. I have sold many of these to the kayak crowd and also had one myself.


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Ok here we go, I decided on two units. It will be either the Lowrance m68c for $200 which is a combo unit 3.5" color screen which is well in my budget or do I get the Lowrance Elite 5 dis for $400 which is a combo with 5" screen and the high definition bottom.

I do not have a troll motor and I am running on just one battery for the whole boat.

Thanks for the help.

Garmin has many GPS and depth finder combo that I have on both of my boats. Very happy with them.

Go with the elite. It's an updated unit, larger screen, sunlight viewable, better maps, etc..


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Just my opinion......

If you want to catch fish......I would spend money on a good [70 lb thrust ??] trolling motor ....and 2 batteries.... before buying a depth finder. If you are mostly fishing inshore water that is shallow, a trolling motor is much more important to quitely move the boat around to find the fish or stay on the fish if they are moving [which they usually do].

The reason for going with gps first is I have no knowledge for fishing this area, thought it would be alittle safer to know location and depth first.

Will be a little hard to add trolling motor to a 2000 hydrasport.

Let's sat I do add another battery should I have a crank and one deep cycle, and do you combine these or put a perko switch?

thanks again david