Fish Finder and chartplotter ideas

[stoutner]

I am just in the beginning stages of trying to figure out how I am going to outfit my new boat. I have been all over the map with regards to electronics. I watch all these fishing shows and see some really kick ass electronics they are probably out of my budget for sure.  

 

I would really prefer 2 screens in the 10" range. I prefer to run my plotter on one and my fishfinder on the other. I also would probably like to tie radar in on one of them. I'm leaning toward Lowrance HDS10 Gen 2 and Lowrance 3G broadband radar. 

 

That is a little more than I want to spend but I'm not ruling it out yet.

 

Any ideas or thoughts that might save me some money and/or give me some more bang for the buck.

 

I was thinking I could buy a nice stand alone 9-12" plotter and one HDS 10 for Fishfinder and Radar.

 

I'm not married to any particular brand. Any thoughts?

[Consigliere]

Only way to really save any money that is significant is going used.  A big sale maybe, but used will almost always be cheapest, just have to be patient and check on lots of forums online and hope the seller will ship. There are a ton of very active forums out there where guys sell lots of gear, and high end stuff.  A lot of the southwest US bass focused forums have electronics up for sale pretty regularly.

[Turfwrench]

May want to check out Standard Horizon for a chartplotter.   The joystick with cursor makes it super quick to scroll around the screen not only to mark locations but for distances to the desired destination.   I have mine hooked up to my Matrix AIS radio and it displays ships and boats on the plotter and when my buddy sends me position request his boat also appears on my plotter and I know exactly how far away he is from me.   Plus the unit has a 3 year warrant to boot.  Hard to beat it.  

 

This is a pic of the plotter with a ship traveling on the upbound shipping lane.  It is the triangle with the extended line for direction.  You will note the cursor in the top right of the screen and the info box on bottom left shows that the cursor is 4.7 miles from my boat position.  The cursor and info box only display when you use the joystick so otherwise the screen is free from clutter.

 

[rolmops]

For fish finders,The Sitex SVS 650 with an Airmar P66 transducer will give you the most bang for your buck at $625 if purchased through Semperfi fishing on "the hull truth"