fish finder needed

[lenb12]

I fish walleye while trolling. I have a 12 foot aluminum boat. I am willing to spend up to $500.00 for a good fish finder. I have read numerous reviews on fish finders, and it is very difficult to determine which one to buy.

My requirements are :

1. proivides good display while travelling at high speed.

2. readable in bright sunlight.

3. Good display of contours, vegetation etc.

4. Track my lure when casting ?

5. easily mountable on my boat(transducer and main unit) - I have to remove it for every trip.

6. Show fish movement in real time while boat is stopped.

7. has both far scan and close scan modes (ie. shows fish near the boat and 20 feet away).

8. fish alarm

Len

 

[Silvertip]

Re: fish finder needed

Many of your requirements are not available in a $500 unit or even a $1000 unit. Why? Because the sonar cone does not extend out the back, side or front of your boat so how do you expect it to track your lure? The shallower the water the more of a problem that is. Think of the sonar as a cone. The deeper the water the larger the diameter of cone at the bottom. And vice versa. In a 12ft boat I don't expect you will be going to sea so I suspect you will be in water typically less than 50 feet. For stationary jig fishing or very slow vertical trolling nearly any locator will show a reasonably sized jig going down. Perhaps a Humminbird side scan sonar would work for you, but you need to up your budget. The best bang for the buck in a black and white standard locator in my view is a Humminbird 565. In color units (very readable in bright sunlight) there are several units in the under $300 range. Eagle Fisheasy 320c and Lowrance x67c, Humminbird 141c, etc.

 

[jtexas]

Re: fish finder needed

If you're jigging a 1.5oz lead slab at 25 or 30 feet you can observe it on the screen under ideal conditions, that's as good as you can get.

show fish movement? they have underwater cameras, maybe one of those.

friend of mine, white bass fishing guide John Varner, snapped this photo of a white bass feeding frenzy:

The vertical lines on the edge are the lures dropping to the bottom.

here's a pic I took of a school of shad trying to imitate a really big fish (like those fish on Finding Nemo):

(actual unretouched photo)