First question is the sidescan worth drooling over? In my mind I see using it around docks,jetties, seawall etc. It’s time to upgrade my unit and trying to stay under 1000.00. I’ve looked at the helix7 and Garmin ecomap. I’m asking for reccomendations pros cons in hopes I don’t buy something and be unhappy. Thanks for any insight.
I’ve got the Simrad Go7XSE with the totalscan transducer and it’s worth every penny for what you’re talking about. Also it’s only $750, after a Navionics platinum plus card you’re still under $1000
East Cape EVOx
quote:Good setup for showing you the structure for sure.
Originally posted by mtoddsolomonI’ve got the Simrad Go7XSE with the totalscan transducer and it’s worth every penny for what you’re talking about. Also it’s only $750, after a Navionics platinum plus card you’re still under $1000
East Cape EVOx
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Down here is where a signature goes but they can confuse and anger some people so I don’t have one.
Thank you. I’ll read up on it. I’m not brand particular. I also do a little bit or crappie fishing on Santee and hitting dock lights for stripers.
I had lowrance on my last boat, now I have garmin. I prefer the lowrance so my new boat will be getting a new lowrance hds 12 next year.
Simrad and lowrance are pretty much the same thing but with a different look.
Once you use side scan you’ll never go back. It is a game changer.
Put a Helix 7 with side scan on Ralph’s boat. He hardly uses it (old skool!) but its pretty awesome.
IMO it’s best for scouting new water, as it will reveal structure you had no idea about before. I haven’t really gotten used to using it to find fish, but i guess its possible. It will pick up bait fish schools. I think its worth it. It would really shine at an offshore reef to find the structures
2000 SeaPro 180CC w/ Yammy 115 2 stroke
1966 13’ Boston Whaler w/ Merc 25 4 stroke “Flatty”
www.ralphphillipsinshore.com
I like mine. It’s a Humminbird. I’m sure they’re all pretty good if you learn to use it. I only wish my screen was bigger.
This was from 4ki.
10% of the people catch 90% of the fish.
I think the simrad won the toss up. Found some pretty good utube videos. Thanks for the replies,I hadn’t considered simrad until yesterday. Good luck to everyone
Had my H-bird for several years and couldn’t be more happy. One piece of advice;; spend a day or so just slowly riding around structure , piers , downed trees ect,ect… learn to read real structure to what you view on screen !!!
It may be info too late if you’ve already purchased the Simrad but here goes. I researched this topic a LOT to see what I could gain from owning one of these units. There’s a ton of info on the freshwater forums and even dedicated side scan forums but almost zilch from the saltwater community. A lot of that probably has to do with the pro bass circuit but in any case I tried to make the best of it. There’s more info than you can possibly go through on HB and Lowrance but very little on Garmin and almost none on Simrad but the Simrad is a rebadged Lowrance with a sleeker design. By the way, don’t let anyone fool you about the internals being different between comparable Simrad and Lowrance units.
The reality is, you’re not going to see much in terms of catchable fish for inshore which it sounds like you’re doing mostly. Bait schools and structure are easy to detect but anything less than 20" is going to show up as a tiny dot on your screen, especially a 7" screen unless the fish is right next to the transducer. I’ve got some great images I’ve saved of schools of reds but they’re right next to the boat in shallow water. If they were 50’ out and holding deep, I’d barely notice them no matter how much I’ve tweaked the settings. Same goes with trout unless they’re really bunched up. Sidescan is really best for finding structure especially in deeper water.
Pic of reds. Notice they are only 10’ from the boat in 5’ of water.
Once you figure out what you’re looking for, you run into the problem of looking at the screen waaaayyy too much when you’d be better served by looking for visual cues on the water. Sometimes it’s too much of a distractor.
I ended up going with HB for several reasons…
- Better shallow water performance
- MUCH better customer service then Lowrance and somewhat better than Garmin
- smaller transducer (important if you’ve got a small boat), the Lowrance,Simrad puck is enormo
YnR reinforces what i posted ^^ , concentrate on learning to read structure , most of the rest is just a learning curve over time and use!!