New Sonar Unit

[dropshot]

I am in the market for a new sonar unit. I was interested in any input or suggestions. I had a Lowrance HDS 5x Gen 1 mounted on the bow of my boat. I really liked the unit, but it has stopped functioning and is out of warranty. I also have an original Lowrance Elite 5 on the console of my boat. I do not like this unit as much as the HDS. It does not seem to show as much detail. I know the new Elite units incorporate Chirp, but I hesitate to purchase one of these. I do not know how Chirp compares to the HDS that I had. I do a lot of jigging for walleye, jigging for lake trout in deep water and smallmouth fishing. I am hoping to find a unit for under $800.00. I did see refurbished HDS units from Cabelas, but I am not sure how I feel about buying one of them. Thanks for any insight.

[Lively1]

I researched this topic about a year and a half ago, to get a decent finder for jigging trout in Keuka.  Here's what I found:

- a 50 or 77 Khz transducer will work better in deep water than a 200 Khz one

- more pixels in the screen is better

- bigger screens are better than smaller ones

- color is a no brainer (almost all are color now anyway)

- the newer Chirp units provide higher resolution but only to a certain depth. won't help you see structure in 120 FOW

- an integrated map/chart plotter feature really isn't needed on a smaller lake.. Navionics for your smartphone costs $5 and is all you need to mark waypoints.

 

Based on that I bought a Garmin for less than $200 and am very happy with it.  If you are fishing shallower for walleye as well as deep for lake trout, something like this might be a reasonable choice:

Garmin echo 551dv with DownVu Sonar

[FleetTracker]

Can't beat the new HDS series units for the $.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Lake Ontario United mobile app