Question for side image owners

[dearl]

Ive been on the fence for a while now over a new depth finder, My last boat I ran a Lowrance that I absolutly loved. I am in the market and started saving for either a 797 bird, or a HDS 7 with the structure scan. I haven't really made up my mind, I have seen both units in operation, and I know the Lowrance is a little more pricey, but everyone that I talk to that owns them loves them. I have owned a few birds and I never had any problems with them, but times have changed since then, plus i hear if you have problem with a bird, good luck.

[catfishrus]

One thing to keep in mine on these side image units...those transducers are not cheap..you know where you going....LOL I have two birds...no problems ..I like the bigger screen 997 unit alot better but so do the retailers...I havent seen the lowrance in use. Humminbird has been great with offering free upgrades.

[dearl]

Thats another thing I was thinking about to, If its even worth the trouble where i go. But when I do fish the lake, or on a new body of water as I have this year, the information that you get versus regular sonar is unmatched correct?

[bigdav]

I have had my 997 for almost four years now and I have nothing but great things to say about it and Humminbird as a company. Their service is much better than Lowrance these days.
They both are proud of the larger screens but there is a reason for it. The larger the screen the more your going to be able to see.
Its an investment, and I have never been sorry for spending the money. The transducers are rather large and again they are very proud of them if you need to replace one. That may be a consideration if /when you are in rough areas. I have kicked mine up a couple of times. One thing that has saved it is, I have a second transducer for regular sonar installed using a y-cable. I run this transducer lower on the transom for readings at speed. I have the larger SI ducer mounted a little higher to protect it. It looses bottom faster at the higher mounting point but it doesn't take the abuse that the cheaper 2D ducer gets.

[catfishrus]

They work good for finding hard/rock structure..now old wood structure..Im not impressed...badin is full of Timber in over a 100 ft of water in fact where we blasted off from at badin...is a forest on the bottom...it doesnt show up too good. You can see it better on regular sonar. I dont think it will help you in the river there but in the lake....it might. I use mine alot at highrock...in fact thats all I use to search shallow water for structure but alot of times in shallow water...what ever is on the bank is in the water also. It helps in locating a certain piece and how much is under water..that type of thing. Its helped me with flatheads...but not so much for blues. Maybe I should use it more than I do. Just another tool in the box.

[catfishrus]

Dave brought up a great point to protect you SI transducer...I know you got a jack plate on your jet boat...mount the side image transducer to it so it will be protected and then use the splitter cable to run a seperate transducer....its a connect and it works thing. I have that on my other boat aswell for high speed readings. Like your boat will more than likely looose bottom reading at highspeed with the SI transducer but the small 2 D transducer will help this. Again you need to check and make you you got a spot to mount it on the jack plate..your boat doesnt draft but maybe 4"..Im not sure your jack plate is even in the water.

[dearl]

Its not. I have used conventional sonar for many years, and it takes time to figure out exactly what your looking at, but for instance in the river, you can get fooled real quick. Some of what you think is down there will fool you. I found out a lot of what I know by looking in the river during low water conditions. I guess its whatever you feel comfortable with, and have confidence in. I haven't been convinced yet that its actually worth the money.

[Broadside]

I"ll have to post some pictures of what I've been able to do with my 797 side imager. I can see exactly where a bait ball is, see the boards on sunken boats, the contours of the Potomac, my gill net, all kinds of neat stuff. This kind of stuff you can see on the boat real time.

Where I really have fun with it is after I get home. Using the recording feature on the fishfinder I record all the raw pings onto the SD card. When I get home I dump them into a software package that lets me create my own high fidelity maps of the river, it generates overlays that I load into Google Earth so I can see all the little nooks and crannys in Smoots Bay and know where all the humps are off of Quantico. I can view a much larger view of the side imaging than you see on the fishfinder. All this is done with off the shelf software that you can download from the side imaging sites.

Now what is really cool, but really takes a lot more work and isn't worth it except for the geek factor is since the fishfinder records the raw data, I can do whatever processing I want with it. You can process those pings to show the side imaging in ground plane vice side plane, so it looks like you're just looking down at the bottom with a mask and snorkel! It takes a LINUX box and a fast computer but is neat to look at.

BTW the 797 is discontinued, the 798 replaced it for the same price, it has the quick view buttons, two sim slots, and a wider screen.

Here's one of the images

[dearl]

798 o.k. gotcha. Does yours have the external gps receiver, or does it come internal? I dont mind a smaller screen, 5" is what I think I read somwhere. What kind of mapps does it come loaded with and what is on the market that can be downloaded?

[Broadside]

I got the NVB model, which is a couple hundred more, but comes preloaded with all four regions of the Navionics hotmaps, I have yet to fish a place that the map wasn't on there for. Most of the software on the side imaging forums you can download for free or a small fee, I've used SI View quite a bit http://www.mnorwood.com/SIView/
I have the internal GPS, works just fine locks on within a minute.

[jerry9497]

I have the 997
Badin and tillery was not on the NVB maps when I bought mine. it's on the "Navionics 09 east" dont know about the new units. I think you got service departments wrong. I have always had good service from humingbird, upgrades are free and they work on problems reported. If you had a problem with Lowrance good luck. They had one lady that would help you there and she is not there anymore. I have been looking at HDS but havnt heard anything change from lowrance yet and I heard the HDS will leak in the rain and mess up, so Im not ready for them yet. to me it's like a chevy/ford thing. go with your favorite or youll cuss everything about the other. I dont regret spending the money I'v got alot of use out of it. I'm sure gona cry when it quits working mines already a few years old also.

[dearl]

Thanks guys, Jerry i think your right i did have them backwards. Its alot of money to take a gamble on either way, but nothing in this sport is cheap. I guess I'll do some more research til lI make up my mind, Thanks again.