Posts: 1185
Location: Iowa | Having dealt with electronics for the past 2 years almost everyday working for a large outdoor reatialer as a shop manager and having fished with both of our walleye pros (Johnnie Candle and Jim Carroll) and seeing what they run this is what I have come up with as an ideal electronics setup in my opinion. I know that other will disagree with me but again this is just an opinion that I have created over my time in outdoor retail.
Lowrance makes great units and they perform veru well in most all applications needed for muskie fishing or any other fishing for that matter. The 520 and 522 were great units. Both were very clear and crisp on the sonar and gps side of things. The new HDS series is taking some getting used to. The units we carry (The HDS 5 through 10, in both the Insight USA models and Base models) will not accept a navionics chip at this point, causing the customer to have to go to the website and download a software update. Not a huge deal, but why put a unit out that is not fully ready to perform as 90% of the people using them want. It will be interesting to see the side imaging side of things as well as the XM satelite weather on the unit.
Humminbird, I believe; right now anyway; is the way to go. and staying as economical as I can I would run a 798c SI at the console with both the side imaging transducer and a second high speed transducer with a toggle switch at the console so I don't loose contact with the bottom at high speeds. We have had some customers complain of that as well as our department manager with the large size of the paddle trnasducer porpoising at high speeds. I would then put a 788c at the bow on a universal sonared terrova 80. I would link the two units togehter so that when I mark a spot on the 798c SI it would transferr that point to the 788c so I can go back and fish it. I would also have the XM satelite reciever hooked up to the system so I could recieve the up to the minute radar overlay. I also like how on a humminbird unit, when the navionics chip is inputed into the system, you don't have to go into a menu and select a region of the chip for the system to read; the whole covered area just appears.
I am in no means trying to put either unit down, I am just expressing my personal opinion. I am sorry if I may have offended anyone. That is in no way my intention. What are other peoples thoughts?
Thanks
Matt Percival |
