Being able to see your balls?

[Xxx]

I'm in need of a good fish finder, chart plotter, I would like to hear what some of you guys that can track your rigger weights lets say from 50 feet plus, what type of unit your using and why you think you can track them at that depth. Meaning is it that the unit works to that extent or is it because of the weights your using. If I could track my weights I think I would be able to keep them in the right temp. I know a 4xd would solve all of this but I can't swing both this year, so I definitely need a new finder so that's top of the list. The info I gather here will be the deciding factor, so please help me out!!!  Thanks PAP.

 

 

[steelie1975]

I have a Lowrance elite 7 and i have no problem tracking to about 90 ft. I am using  14 pd Torpedo weights made by torpedo. I believe it has more to do with the weight than the unit. The blow back on lighter weights past 50 feet can be a lot. The more you can keep in the transducer cone of vision the better you are. Lets see what other people think

[jimski2]

Cut down on beer drinking and you may see around your belly.

[ray koziatek]

i use a mirror

[Don Supon]

Weight and shape of ball make a big difference with blowback. You've got to keep the ball in the cone angle to track it (torpedo and heavy). Dual frequency transducers typically show best when solely using the lowest frequency it has. Some boats angle the transducer slightly up in the rear to point the cone more rearward; not as accurate for depth though. Another option is to zoom in on a particular depth zone once you determine where the fish are holding (say 50-70 ft.). And don't forget about speed. Slow tracks best, but that might be too slow for the fish. And currents at depth can move the ball out of the cone also.

My HumminBird 700 series shows the ball (faintly) at 80 feet using a 16 lb. torpedo shape weight going 2.4 or less at the ball usually. But it will also show the ball clearly when zooming the bottom in 120 FOW when slow trolling for lakers at ball speeds below 2.0.

There is no magic bullet actually. Each boat has to be tweaked to obtain desired results. Stay with torpedo shape and the heaviest your riggers can handle. If 12 lbs. is tops for your riggers, I'd replace them as the starting point.

[King Slammin]

I have an HDS 7 that marks my 13lb torpedo diver weights down to about 100' on calm days. I got it on sale when the new gen2 units were coming out for less than half price. I think it does the job well but am looking to upgrade my ducer to a thru hull. A couple guys recommended airmars B60 thruhull to replace my stock transom mount. My buddy has the HDS12 gen 2 and its amazing. I just can't spend that kind of coin.

[Sk8man]

Sometimes returning to "basics" can be productive or helpful to understanding the basic problem here.  If tracking your downrigger balls is the primary concern (rather than separating fish from the bottom for example) get a finder with the widest beam coverage (determined primarily by cone angle).  The cone angle from any  transducer will be significantly narrower at the top than bottom so as your boat speed increases your downrigger balls will be increasing their outward "journey" away from the cone center and as they get to the outside edges of it they may appear intermittently on screen or disappear. The weight of downrigger balls is a factor in this but only to a point as is resistance of downrigger wire itself. There will be a point reached no matter how heavy the ball is or how sensitive the fish finder is that the boat speed and perhaps current conditions will force the ball outside the edge of the cone. When you look carefully (and providing your sensitivity or "gain" is set properly for conditions) you will see the the lines on the screen made by the downrigger ball tracking getting fainter and fainter as the ball goes toward the cone edge. In most cases (depending on transducer location etc.) you will probably mark one downrigger much better than the other and the farthest one from the transducer will be going in and out of the cone edge especially at increased speed and on turns and generally the deeper the ball is set the more pronounced this is because of the relationship of the angle of the wire (and increased water resistance) to the cone angle. The "long and short" of this is that no matter what unit you buy it will not get around these limitations....you will still have to experiment with boat speed to see where your range of operation is best and transducer placement is optimal.

[Xxx]

Thanks a lot guys, Yea I cut way back on my beer drinking so that's a start!! mean while back to the point, I think I have the older mag 10's with factory 4ft booms. How can I tell what I have and what is the heaviest I can go with them, (they lift 12.5# with no problems, they don't even grunt or act like there is to heavy of a weight) pancake type with a aluminum fin I can bend so they track to the sides, If I went with 13# torpedo diver weights, are they a type that actually digs in the water to keep the depth instead of just being pulled along? One thing I noticed with different finders is they have different degrees of cone angle example Garmin which is near the top of my choice is 77/200, Lowrance is 83/200 or 50/200, the Furuno is 50/200 also I'm guessing the 83/200 and the 77/200 are the type I'll be looking into. The Hummingbird seems to give the best bang for your buck and Garmin isn't far behind, I'm not that tech. inclined so from what I heard the Lowrance products seem complicated from what I read, but there are a lot of them out there so how difficult can it be, especially if you used fish finders before, I know it's a chevy-ford-dodge debate. I'd like to stay in the high $600-mid $700 that's my budget as of now, and will spring for the torpedo diver weight. Thanks everyone for your help, I really appreciate your input!! PAP.

[Sk8man]

Pap -I have the Mag 10's too and I'm, pretty sure the top recommended maximum weight for the older motors is about 10 lbs. As far as the depth finder goes the frequency (measured in Khz) of the unit (matched to the transducer) is a different factor than CONE ANGLE. Sometimes you have to check with the tech people to find out the cone angle because they don't always include it in the literature. The cone angle is usually greater (i.e. wider) the smaller the KHz  (e.g.50 khz vs. 200) but cone angle can vary considerably with the function and type (e.g. through hull vs. transom mount) of transducer.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Sk8man

[lineman49]

  Suck in your stomach, & I heard being double jointed helps!

[bout time]

Another thing to do is adjust your transducer angle on the back of the boat to compensate for the blowback. I used Humminbird 500 and 700 series with good success but recently switched to raymarine c-series and would never switch back. it is all personal preference as they (lowrance,raymarine,huuminbird,furuno, etc) will work. I know i had to to do alot of tweaking to get my humminbird where i wanted it but when i did it was good and i could track them down to 100' or so.

[Fish Hunter]

i use a mirror

When I saw the title to this thread, that was my immediate thought, and was questioned as to "What's so funny" by the wifey.

You beat me to it.........  

[Xxx]

When I saw the title to this thread, that was my immediate thought, and was questioned as to "What's so funny" by the wifey.

You beat me to it.........  

HA ha ha  I knew when I titled the thread I knew I was going to get a mixed bag of comments. Those that answered my question "thanks" I know what finder I'm going with and I'm going to use the rigger weights we made with a mold they are 13#s with the tail for tracking, had it made by a machine shop,(mold) should cut through the water to reduce blow back, they are round like the pancake type, but the front edge is very thin kind of like a wedge, while being able to bend the tail to track of to the sides for a open area for a chute rod. If they don't work good enough I'll be getting the torpedo weights. Thanks for the replies both funny and to the subject. PAP.

[ERABBIT]

Good luck with your new unit pap.......I'm not a big fan of pancake riggersballs BUT a lot of people like them..... think a good down current could tangle up your riggerball if you were running them a tad to close to each other...... I have a mold for 12# round balls with a small fin on the back that's what I run........ some people have picked up 13#'er from troutman on this site . All I've seen is good feed back on them...... I'm also not 100% sold on the  83/200 that HB has ..... but then HB has a history of bad transducers...... I think my old Raymarine L 750 50/200 tracked my riggerballs the best...... I can do it now with the HB 798 ci HD with si ..... need to keep turning up the sensitivity ..... the 798 has a GREAT picture of whats below the boat easy to spot fish hugging the bottom............ need a lot of tuning to get it right but as said above it's a great unit when it's done...... also not sold on the GPS part of HB but never put the time in to fine tune it ( that's the big quetion WHY do you have to FINE tune it ????? )

[Xxx]

ERRABIT I decided on a Raymarine unit with down scan and a 77/200 ducer. I like the simplicity of the unit and the auto functions, I talked to a rep. and he promised all I need to do is mount it and go fishing, they have the fluid type gps where every time your boat moves it will show on the screen, my hummingbird I can be going the other way before it spins the triangle around. The down scan is so photo looking its unreal and he also told me if it doesn't auto your functions he will send me the next step up in units for free!!! Every question I asked he answered to the T it also can be set up manually so like if you want the gps function the biggest you can move the sonar and down scan around to make this possible. The only reason I wanted down scan is because I do a lot of walleye fishing and it would be nice to see the structure I'm fishing, the rep. mentioned when I told him why I wanted dsi. he said you will see the fish on the breaks, you will see the fish on the sonar also then look on the dsi to verify it's a fish not a false reading of the sonar. He also said that if I can keep my weights in the cone you will actually see fish streak towards your bait, which I herd of people saying but I had my doubts about it. The first time I ever saw this was on a charter I took the first time I went to western lake Erie, I was amazed and thought that only a TV. size screen mega $$$ finder was the only way to see this. I have a Hummingbird 727 now at the time it was the only unit with 4000 watts of power and 500rms, the gps. was a add on with the outside device mounted with an antenna type mount. Its about 10 years old so much has happened in 10 years, I can't wait to get it. Only down fall is it has a 5.7" screen, the bigger screens are out of my budget, If I ordered the unit while talking to the rep. he said he would take $100.00 off the price and then the unit I really wanted was doable so I ordered the unit. Come on mister post man!!!   

[ERABBIT]

Now that's funny ...... I spent a few hours today looking at a Raymarine Dragonfly Fishfinder Sonar GPS .... even called lakebound88 to ask him about the one he has....... what one are you getting..... if you don't want to post it just PM me if you would be so kind...........good luck waiting for the mail..............