What electronics should I get, new boat.

[Chad711]

My Boat is suppose to be ready this week. I bought a 2004 Lund 16 ExplorerSS. I did get a 55 thrust trolling motor with the transducer built in, and a front transducer. The only electronics I have is the Lowrance X67 Ice Machine. Will this be enough, or am I going to be disapointed. Small screen compared to others, like the X125 I have seen.

Open to suggestions.

Thanks, Chad...

[alwayscatchineyes]

Nothing wrong with that finder, is it the color one? It is nicer to have a bigger screen though. I have two lowrance x-85's and love them. The screen is 5" diagonal and I don't have a problem with visibility, especially at night, Lowrance has I think the best backlighting. Eagle is made by Lowrance also and is cheaper quality verses quality but the backlighting is not as good, but still good enough to see very well at night. I'am talkin my brother into a bottomline tournament 480 max, looks like a very nice unit for 180.00 with temp. and 210.00 with speed and temp. through Cabelas. Don't know much about them but he will be the guinne pig for me. Looks like the best bang for the buck to me but will wait and see, better his money than mine, if he don't like it I will lock the doors and take phones off the hook.

[joshb]

i've got the m68c, it is the same as the 67 but with gps, i really like it but it would be nice to have a bigger screen, it was either a bigger screen without gps or a little screen with.......the next step up that has both is big$$$$. i was really impressed with how much better it graphs fish than my old eagle, and that it is color....an important option imo. it's nice that i can take it on the ice to. i can run mine on split screen with the gps using about 1/3 of the screen without any problems.

you get what you pay for!

[This message has been edited by joshb (edited 04-11-2004).]

[Chad711]

The 67 was great for ice fishing, the ONLY thing was the screen was small. Which was fine for Ice fishing, but Im thinking in the boat it may be tough. Thanks fellas, Chad.

[jclymer]

Just bought a Lowrance Ifinder Pro with Navonics hotspot maps, and this is a must have! I was looking at the Garmin 176C and I was talked out of the Garmin and into the Ifinder pro and I am extremely happy for that! The Ifinder Pro with mapping software was about $300, the Garmin with mapping was over $600. Ifinder will find you within 1' of where you are sitting and with the hotspot map it will show you the contours of a lake, submerged islands, etc and it will show you exactly where your boat is positioned. I just picked up my brand new boat this year and I do believe the Lowrance Ifinder pro with hotspot map is the best extra intem I have purchased for this boat thus far!

[EBass]

I would like to have two ducers. One for the front and one for the back. But I only have my FL-18 on it and the engine needs work. So I'll roll with the one until until I can afford another.

Ah here's a Q I'd like to ask you gents. I have a jon boat and fish lakes and rivers. The flasher is real time, but it doesn't have speed or temp which I want. So do I get a graph and put the ducer for it on the back and have the FL-18 on front, or vice versa?

My buddy said to have the flasher ducer on the back that way it's real time and that's the most important. I can see his point.

[PRO-V]

After 15 years of running an Eagle Ultra I just got a Lowrance LMS-480. Fired it up the other day in the yard. Screen detail is incredible. Gps is very nice too. Loaded a Navionics Hotmap in it. Didn't figure I could afford the card reader pak & mmc chip plus buy additional software. Lots of great features. Might take awhile to get used to though if you are not familiar with GPS. Manual is 1/2" thick and 200 pages. If I only wanted sonar I would get the X-125 or 135.