New boat, time for electronics

[norma]

Just signed a deal on a Alumacraft Trophy 185 W/Suzuki 175. Time for new electronics. On my old boat I ran 2 LCX 27's and a globalmap 3500c chartplotter. One of the 27's went with the trade.

The way I see it, I have three options,

1: Buy an additional Lowrance HDS unit (8?) for the console to use with the 3500c on the console and the remaining lcm 27 on the bow.

Pros, stick with one interface and I don't have to go out and buy new lakemaster chips. All the units can be networked together.

Cons: Haven't heard many good things about Lowrance latley, CS is nonexistant. My 27 will burn up a transducer each year, gets expensive.

2: run the LCM27 on the bow, the 3500c on the helm and get a humminbird at the helm (889?)

Pros, Shift to Humminbird which seems to be the better unit, haven't sen the screen myself yet. Used only as a graph, I still will not have to buy new lake chips.

Cons: Units can no longer be networked together, the 2d screen shots that I have seen from Humminbird haven't impressed me much, could someone with experience clue me in.

3: Sell all my Lowrance and go to Humminbird. would still like to stick with 2 7" screens and one 5" chartplotter. Works out great for me.

Pros: compatability across the board, if on dies another can take it place if needed. Better CS support. Humminbird so far has not had the track record of turning things more than two years old into Legacy items.

Cons: Money. Lots of it. Twenty six hundred for the three units, without Side imaging, $250 for a pair of lakemaster chips, MN and Lake of the Woods. Plus cabeling, figure three grand without side imaging, $3500 with. Not entirely sold on side imaging tho, I drift sideways, and vertical jig mostly.If I am pulling spinners I am going 3/4 to 1.5 mph how does it work at those speeds? I do some trolling, but not a lot. Who out there is a walley fisherman and uses SI? What is the report?

[harvey lee]

Here is a thread that talks about the SI on the Bird unit.

Hope this helps.

http://www.hotspotoutdoors.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2140673/Humminbird_997cSI#Post2140673

[fishwater]

Aside from customer support issues with Lowrance, I think the HDS units are pretty slick.

...the 2d screen shots that I have seen from Humminbird haven't impressed me much, could someone with experience clue me in.

I love the dual beam plus 2d on the birds, one of the features that puts Hbird over the top IMO. Now with the switchfire control, you kinda get the best of both worlds - dsp processed variable gain for a proportionally scaled image over the entire column, or a true view of your sonars return (such as lowrance has.) I haven't ran the upgrade yet, but a quality software upgrade over the life of your graph is pretty nice deal too.

[JohnMickish]

If it where me, I'd sell my Lowrance stuff.

The reason for that is now that Hbird can use the lakemaster chips as well (not the ones you have, but Humminbird only chips) and has an easier network system there really isn't a reason to use Lowrance. Each companies quality and customer service is well documented on this site.

I personally run a Lowrance 27 on the bow, a 102c at the rear and a Humminbird 937 at the console. Having had years of experience (both good and bad) with Lowrance I had a chance to get the 937 for a steal so I sold my 520 and X17 that I had on the console and went with the bird. Best thing I have done in years. It's a pretty easy job to transfer your waypoints to the bird format so that is not a problem.

Whatever you do, make sure you get what you want.

[harvey lee]

Same here mnfishinguy, New 997cSI bird for this spring. I have my Lowrance 522 working again but I don't have alot of faith in it or for that matter, Lowrances CS. The 522 will be up front with my trolling motor I believe.

[Crusty old Swede]

One thing you might want to think about, Linda Colt is no longer employed by Lowrance...no more customer support.

[wplatehunter]

One thing you might want to think about, Linda Colt is no longer employed by Lowrance...no more customer support.

That is to bad. Everyone had good things to say about her.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Personally, I would go with 'bird. You will not have trouble selling your other stuff and can use the funds to offset your purchase.

[TSchultz]

I went through the same thing last spring. Got rid of my Lowrance 112 and 111 LCX's and went with Hbird. #1 reason, they just plain work. I don't know how the latest updates have done with the HDS systems, and I wasn't sure I wanted to find out on Lowrances new platform.

One thing, go with the Side Imagaing once you learn to use it a bit it is a very powerful tool. Think of it as more of a scouting tool. It does not work very well at slow speeds. Generally 3mph or faster depending on your settings. What I do is troll past the area your interested in fishing and start putting down waypoints. You will find stuff that you never even knew was there.

Once you get on to it you can even spot walleyes on it, and if you fish crappies look out SI is deadly for finding suspended crappies.

[Northlander]

I will also be a Humminbird man until someone comes along that can match their products and customer service for less. Lowrances customer service has been poor for years in my opinion.

Humminbirds customer service was great the 1 time I had to use it.