Is color necessary in a sonar?

[Fish Head]

Is there much of a benefit to having color on your sonar unit, apposed to monochrome? I don’t mind the monochrome grey scale units, but I’m wondering if I’m missing something. Is there is a major benefit to having color. Is it much easier to tell a fish from a rock or weed using color? Or is just not that much different?

[Insp Gadget]

Depending on how good or young your eyes are, the biggest difference I saw in using one for the first time this past July in visibility. Screen is brighter in bright light and adjustable in dark so you have greater flexibility with conditions. Also, with newer software options there is a lot more info on the screen than there used to be. Mine has topo or street info loaded and at a glance i can see marsh or high ground, street names parks etc. It might be my eyes, but I would have to look hard to sort it out on a grayscale and sometimes depending on lighting get the angle just right. With color it's easy all the time.

Gadget

[SuddenlySummer]

Yes, you can more easily pick out a fish if it's in cover or in the middle of a school of baitfish.

[92python]

I used a Clearwater Classic for about 8 years both winter and summer. I loved that thing. Had a high speed transducer on the boat and a puck for the ice. Kept it in its case running off the battery all year. The battery didn't need to be recharged much. Draws very little current.

After much abuse, the backlights both went. I got a new boat where it wasn't the main unit and got sick of switching it between the bow of my boat and the ice box. I got an FL18 last winter that I now only use for the ice.

I think the LCD one color display doesn't hurt you much. The main advantage the FL18 has over the Clearwater is the zoom. The only other places where I have see a disadvantage with the Clearwater was with suspended crappies mixed with a BUNCH of zooplankton or seeing fish in sparse weeds.

[PerchJerker]

I have a Zercom on the bow of my boat and a Vexilar for ice fishing. I don't think the color is an advantage - after using the Zerc for a while I learned how to distinguish stronger signals from weaker signals. That's really all the color on the Vexilar does for you.

I've never used a color graph, but with my Lowrance with grayscale I can distinguish bottom, bottom hardness, fish on the bottom, relative size of fish, baitfish, and weeds or rocks.

[This message has been edited by PerchJerker (edited 02-07-2004).]