New Lowrance Elite DSI Fishfinder/GPS

[alexmedic]

So after a mixture of really bad luck, I ha to cancel out on the annual fishing trip that I participate in

 

That being said, the $750.00 that I had saved up over the last year for the trip can be used towards a new fishfinder/gps I have decide to make lemonade from lemons!

 

My buddy has the Lowarnce HDS 5 and loves it. Since I'm in no hurry, I was looking at this unit that will be released shortly:

 

http://www.lowrance.com/Products/Marine/Mark-Elite-Series/Elite-5-DSI/

 

There is very little info on the unit as it has not hit the water yet, but I was wondering if anyone has any insight into it?? Is it worth the new technology or would staying old school be the way to go?

 

BTW: The best price I have found for the unit is through GPScity.ca - $710.00

Edited September 12, 2010 by Ten90

[Fisherman]

The only point that I would question is the 250' depth range, if you fish the deep water for salmon then it's no good.

[Roy]

As much as I love my Lowrance products, I've learned over the years that being a pioneer can be an expensive hobby. I kind of prefer to have other (wealthier than I) folks try them out first.

[lew]

I can't comment on that particular unit, but I'm thinking you'll be happier with a larger screen. Once you split the 5" screen to view both sonar & GPS at the same time your left with 2 very small images.

 

Moving up to a larger screen makes a HUGE difference.

 

Just my own personal opinion though

[greenfshrmn]

I'm with Lew on this one. The bigger the screen, the better! My 50-something year old eyes are having problems with my 5"gps screen. You can't miss me on the lake, I'm the guy with his face pressed up to the screen trying to fiure out which pair of glasses work best while I idle around looking for that way point!

[Roy]

Very true, Lew. I have a 7.5" screen and even at that I prefer to go from one full screen to the other. When running faster, I'll often stay on full GPS screen and leave a small depth, temp,speed etc... window up. On lesser known waters, the split screen is the way to go for me anyway.

[Terry]

yeah but as you get bigger the price sure jumps up

 

I have the hds-5 and I use it as my fishfinder I have an older X-25C 7" and I use it as the gps......and I love it

 

I see no reason to spend the big bucks for the expensive screens for a GPS find an older used one and use the smaller 5" screen for the finder

[Roy]

yeah but as you get bigger the price sure jumps up

 

I have the hds-5 and I use it as my fishfinder I have an older X-25C 7" and I use it as the gps......and I love it

 

I see no reason to spend the big bucks for the expensive screens for a GPS find an older used one and use the smaller 5" screen for the finder

 

Hell Terry, you have the 25C? That's the one I have too. Great unit..I bought it when it was a year old. I don't suppose you can communicate with the HDS with it?

[lew]

I'm like you Terry and use seperate units as well.

 

I've got the 7" Globalmap GPS on the dash in front of me and then I put a 5" sonar on the other side. No room for both on my side but no problem seeing it on the passenger side.

 

[Terry]

Hell Terry, you have the 25C? That's the one I have too. Great unit..I bought it when it was a year old. I don't suppose you can communicate with the HDS with it?

 

the data cables are different so I have not tried..but might be interesting if they could be connected

[alexmedic]

The only point that I would question is the 250' depth range, if you fish the deep water for salmon then it's no good.

 

 

That was something I was wondering about as well. Although the possibility of Lake O salmons could be there, it would be very rare.

 

 

Just out of curiosity, what happens when the water depth exceeds the sonar range? Will it just it bounce back or show 250 feet max??

[alexmedic]

As much as I love my Lowrance products, I've learned over the years that being a pioneer can be an expensive hobby. I kind of prefer to have other (wealthier than I) folks try them out first.

 

That is a really good point.

 

The one thing I have learned over my years is listen to people that have been around longer. Especially when their advice is only there to help!

Edited September 12, 2010 by Ten90

[Pigeontroller]

Looks like a Humminbird...

 

Stick with proven technology, I was under the impression they still hadn't worked the bugs out of the HDS series?

[Spiel]

 

Just out of curiosity, what happens when the water depth exceeds the sonar range? Will it just it bounce back or show 250 feet max??

 

If depth excedes the sonars capabilities you'll get no bottom reading, however it'll still return signals created by suspended fish.

 

I used to fish Lake O with an older paper graph that had a 120' max reading and never had any trouble marking fish that were at 120' and above.

 

 

 

[aplumma]

The lowrance elite series is the Lowrance hd-5 with the lss-1 chip built in. The 250 ft max is because it is running the 455 or 800 khz.The higher the Khz the more detail is painted but the signal strength is not as strong. You can expect it to fade out at higher speeds above 30 mph. I am running the 7 hd with the lss-1 module and find it is great at up to 30 mph and 75 ft of water or less showing bait and fish as entirely different images. It appears it does not have side scan capacity or the lower khz frequency for more depth penetration. I have had the 5 inch screen and splitting it makes it's gps function difficult to see ahead very far at higher speeds. It looks like it is a stripped down version of the unit I am running that was purchased in two parts the HD 7 and the LSS-1 for around $1300.00 within the last year. If you can save a little more for the 7 inch you will be happier. I have found the technology most useful for scanning an area and marking spots to fish then coming back later. The detail on bottom 4X makes it possible to scan an rea and find the humps and cover fish love. The unit also does not interpret the bottom like the lower frequency does it is not creating a cone signal it is creating a flat line building the image much like a MRI it is why it can see the branches on the sunken trees instead of a hump or spikes.

 

 

Art

[alexmedic]

The lowrance elite series is the Lowrance hd-5 with the lss-1 chip built in. The 250 ft max is because it is running the 455 or 800 khz.The higher the Khz the more detail is painted but the signal strength is not as strong. You can expect it to fade out at higher speeds above 30 mph. I am running the 7 hd with the lss-1 module and find it is great at up to 30 mph and 75 ft of water or less showing bait and fish as entirely different images. It appears it does not have side scan capacity or the lower khz frequency for more depth penetration. I have had the 5 inch screen and splitting it makes it's gps function difficult to see ahead very far at higher speeds. It looks like it is a stripped down version of the unit I am running that was purchased in two parts the HD 7 and the LSS-1 for around $1300.00 within the last year. If you can save a little more for the 7 inch you will be happier. I have found the technology most useful for scanning an area and marking spots to fish then coming back later. The detail on bottom 4X makes it possible to scan an rea and find the humps and cover fish love. The unit also does not interpret the bottom like the lower frequency does it is not creating a cone signal it is creating a flat line building the image much like a MRI it is why it can see the branches on the sunken trees instead of a hump or spikes.

 

 

Art

 

 

Thanks for the great explanation. I have been reading like mad about this technology and the one weird thing I have notices is that everyone, meaning Lowrance and Humminbird, brag about the bottom quality you see, or baitfish balls, but no one ever talks about key thing.. Can I mark fish??

 

With a standard fish finder, it is no problem to identify an arch, but what do you see on Down Side Imaging??

Edited September 13, 2010 by Ten90

[desship]

Check radioworld listed at $580.00.

 

http://radioworld.ca/product_info.php?cPath=3_205&products_id=8003

[Stoty]

You wont beat Radioworld's prices, that's for sure.

 

I have both an HDS-7 and HDS-5, and haven't had an issue at all. They are amazing units, with amazing detail.

 

I'll agree with the others, saying that when it comes to technology, stick with what works. It's a very expensive hobby if things dont work out!

[aplumma]

Thanks for the great explanation. I have been reading like mad about this technology and the one weird thing I have notices is that everyone, meaning Lowrance and Humminbird, brag about the bottom quality you see, or baitfish balls, but no one ever talks about key thing.. Can I mark fish??

 

With a standard fish finder, it is no problem to identify an arch, but what do you see on Down Side Imaging??

 

 

When you see an arch you are seeing the fish entering the cone and then exiting the cone. It does not have anything to do with the size of the fish. When you see a fish arch in the cone at 30ft it does not mean it is 30 feet down from the surface it means it is 30 ft from the transducer. a cone records the first signal return as a mark on the screen if it pings a 5 ft circle 30 feet below the boat and it has a rock in the circle sticking up 2 feet it will report a bottom of 28ft. If their are 2 walleye at 29 ft you will never see them. Weeds are the biggest reason for misreading a depth finder a dense patch will read as a soft bottom but still have loads of fish between the bottom and the top of the weeds. Now with the 800htz the fish will show up as a smoke trail like presence because it reads in a flat line so a fish that is below the boat and stationary will show up as a solid line but fish are seldom stationary so the line will be denser and lighter as the fish swims and turns. Bait returns are a large oval to round moving smoke cloud that changes density as the school rises or spreads out depending on the noise or predators around. If you find a bait ball that is scattering and has heavy smoke trails on the edges you have found a bait ball under attack from predators so quit looking at the stupid depth finder and start fishing.

 

The reason you hear them bragging about the bottom reading is the information you get from reading the habitat is vastly more important than if you see fish. If you were to go bear hunting do you go to the place were the bear has food and shelter or just hunt till you find a bear? You will mark a lot of fish that are neutral and are just moving from feeding place to feeding place. Looking for fish is most times frustrating and consumes a lot of fishing time. Now if you were looking at the DEPTHFINDER (notice I never call it a fishfinder) and you see a weedy hard bottom in 25 feet of water and a rock field with ambush points wouldn't you play the odds and troll that? So lets say you are blindly fishing one day and you hook into a pike then a few more occur do you take the time to look at your depth finder to see what the bottom looks/made of? Are they in the weeds or on the edges? Are they deep or shallow ? O.K. I know that you did so now what do you do?. Well you get your handy map out or Chartplotter screen and scroll around till you find other places that have the same features. A North shore with weeds in 20 ft of water occurs in many places on a lake and you can bet if you match all of the important features of the spot you caught the fish in then you will find more until the pattern changes due to weather or acts of God. The secret to finding out what your depthfinder is telling you is to see the returns and confirm the bottom. Get a 10 ft piece of pipe and run the boat around while looking at the screen the Echo returns are depicted in a color spectrum with the strongest returns depicted bright Yellow, medium returns depicted Red, and the weakest returns depicted Blue. Take the pipe and poke the bottom to see how hard is a yellow bottom? Does gravel also reflect yellow? Notice how wide the yellow area is the wider it is the harder the bottom. Once you get this info in your head you can then start taking off the automatic Gain and other features making it an even more useful tool. Eventually you will be able to screen out all most all of the clutter on the screen and only get returns from the actual fish in the water column instead of wood and weeds the sky is the limit as you start to explore what the unit can tell you.

 

 

Good luck and have fun with it.

 

Art

[alexmedic]

Check radioworld listed at $580.00.

 

http://radioworld.ca/product_info.php?cPath=3_205&products_id=8003

 

 

Great price, but I believe that model is without GPS..

[alexmedic]

When you see an arch you are seeing the fish entering the cone and then exiting the cone. It does not have anything to do with the size of the fish. When you see a fish arch in the cone at 30ft it does not mean it is 30 feet down from the surface it means it is 30 ft from the transducer. a cone records the first signal return as a mark on the screen if it pings a 5 ft circle 30 feet below the boat and it has a rock in the circle sticking up 2 feet it will report a bottom of 28ft. If their are 2 walleye at 29 ft you will never see them. Weeds are the biggest reason for misreading a depth finder a dense patch will read as a soft bottom but still have loads of fish between the bottom and the top of the weeds. Now with the 800htz the fish will show up as a smoke trail like presence because it reads in a flat line so a fish that is below the boat and stationary will show up as a solid line but fish are seldom stationary so the line will be denser and lighter as the fish swims and turns. Bait returns are a large oval to round moving smoke cloud that changes density as the school rises or spreads out depending on the noise or predators around. If you find a bait ball that is scattering and has heavy smoke trails on the edges you have found a bait ball under attack from predators so quit looking at the stupid depth finder and start fishing.

 

The reason you hear them bragging about the bottom reading is the information you get from reading the habitat is vastly more important than if you see fish. If you were to go bear hunting do you go to the place were the bear has food and shelter or just hunt till you find a bear? You will mark a lot of fish that are neutral and are just moving from feeding place to feeding place. Looking for fish is most times frustrating and consumes a lot of fishing time. Now if you were looking at the DEPTHFINDER (notice I never call it a fishfinder) and you see a weedy hard bottom in 25 feet of water and a rock field with ambush points wouldn't you play the odds and troll that? So lets say you are blindly fishing one day and you hook into a pike then a few more occur do you take the time to look at your depth finder to see what the bottom looks/made of? Are they in the weeds or on the edges? Are they deep or shallow ? O.K. I know that you did so now what do you do?. Well you get your handy map out or Chartplotter screen and scroll around till you find other places that have the same features. A North shore with weeds in 20 ft of water occurs in many places on a lake and you can bet if you match all of the important features of the spot you caught the fish in then you will find more until the pattern changes due to weather or acts of God. The secret to finding out what your depthfinder is telling you is to see the returns and confirm the bottom. Get a 10 ft piece of pipe and run the boat around while looking at the screen the Echo returns are depicted in a color spectrum with the strongest returns depicted bright Yellow, medium returns depicted Red, and the weakest returns depicted Blue. Take the pipe and poke the bottom to see how hard is a yellow bottom? Does gravel also reflect yellow? Notice how wide the yellow area is the wider it is the harder the bottom. Once you get this info in your head you can then start taking off the automatic Gain and other features making it an even more useful tool. Eventually you will be able to screen out all most all of the clutter on the screen and only get returns from the actual fish in the water column instead of wood and weeds the sky is the limit as you start to explore what the unit can tell you.

 

 

Good luck and have fun with it.

 

Art

 

Great reply and thanks for all the info.

 

I totally agree on the structure theory. I guess the only time seeing an actual fish would be important when I am downrigging..