Which sonar to buy?

[AKRISONER]

sure, you could spend 10 years on a lake driving around and one day find that boulder pile in the middle of the lake....or you can use side image for 1 minute see something 200 yards to your right in 30 Fow, scroll your cursor over the mark, hit "mark" and then proceed to fish right on top of it...but ya...side imaging is useless... lol

[porkpie]

On July 20, 2018 at 3:28 PM, Sinker said:

If you can't do all that on your own without interfering with fishing, I think your doing something wrong. Leaving your fish catching to electronics says nothing of your abilities.  What do you do when it suddenly shuts down and never turns back on again?? UH OH.....

 

S. 

Your a pickerel fisherman.  I invite you to try an ipilot unit.  Fishing 6 rods on Erie with me and 2 kids  in the boat and my terrova keeps me on the approximate heading I've chosen while I set riggers, send lead out on boards or drop dipsys etc. Sure I can do all that without it.  Do it a couple times and it will change your opinion entirely.  I guarantee it.  I also believed that side imaging was pretty much useless for trolling.  Until I spent some time on my last couple of trips using it to mark suspended schools in 50 fow, scroll back to them, drop a waypoint and then turn over top of them and catch fish.  I can do all of these tasks (save marking fish off the sides) with my gas engine and a greyscale fish finder if I wanted to.  But something more effective has come along so I'm going to use it.  If all that says nothing of my abilities to catch fish, I'm alright by it.  Because I've learned just how effective it can be.

Edited July 25, 2018 by porkpie

[Lape0019]

Dabluz, 

this seems to have gotten a little of track and I hope to steer this back in the right direction. 

Most of what akrisoner states is correct. Like 95%. The only thing I would state is different is only the G2N units at the 7 series Helix will work. Don’t look at any g2 units at all. If you are buying current units, you need the G2N designation. 

But if you are looking at the original series (G1), any unit over a Helix 9 without DI and GPS should network to the I pilot link. 

 

If your son son didn’t get the link model, you don’t have to worry about networking at all and can pretty much buy whatever you want. All you’ll be missing by not being able to link the units is follow the contour, memory to store more waypoints and tracks and the ability to operate your TM from your graph. 

 

I recently purchased a new boat boat and didn’t think Link was worth it to me. I went with the ultrex with standar I-pilot and two Helix 10 G2N MEGA units. Well, I actually asked for G1’s but they couldn’t get them. 

And I have the lakemaster chip. For what I fish, it would be useless for following the contour. Lakemaster has some ground to make up here as not a lot of the maps for what I fish are HD so follow the contour would not have worked. 

 

With either of the I-pilot options, I feel you will enjoy the added features. This is my second boat with I-pilot and I won’t have another without it. 

[AKRISONER]

6 minutes ago, Lape0019 said:

 

And I have the lakemaster chip. For what I fish, it would be useless for following the contour. Lakemaster has some ground to make up here as not a lot of the maps for what I fish are HD so follow the contour would not have worked. 

 

im super super curious to see what lakemaster Ontario looks like...

 

Dont forget the added bonus that G2 and G2N units of the helix 5 and 7 are able to function under the newest update which provides owners with a totally redesigned "ice mode" which turns your helix 5 or 7 into a digital flasher! The Helix ice cases are hard to come by but i found a lowrance one for $90 including the battery and with a really simply modification, my helix 7 now doubles up as my ice unit in the winter time!

Also the G2 models have much improved menus over the G1 units including the most handy "view selection" menu rather than scrolling view by view.

Edited July 25, 2018 by AKRISONER

[Lape0019]

8 minutes ago, AKRISONER said:

Also the G2 models have much improved menus over the G1 units including the most handy "view selection" menu rather than scrolling view by view.

At this time, I don’t find it all that great. Navin is plus is still way out in front of it. It is nice to be able to colour the different ranges to find your targeted depth in the lake quickly but for the most part, Navionics is still king. 

 

As fir the handy “view selection”, that is great. There isn’t much I don’t like about the helix units. I came from an older Lowrance Elite-5 DSI and the bird is way more user friendly for me. 

[AKRISONER]

2 minutes ago, Lape0019 said:

At this time, I don’t find it all that great. Navin is plus is still way out in front of it. It is nice to be able to colour the different ranges to find your targeted depth in the lake quickly but for the most part, Navionics is still king. 

 

As fir the handy “view selection”, that is great. There isn’t much I don’t like about the helix units. I came from an older Lowrance Elite-5 DSI and the bird is way more user friendly for me. 

this makes me feel more at ease after i bought navionics + last year and then they released lakemaster and i was concerned that lakemaster was going to be wayyyy more detailed.

[BillM]

They all get their maps from the same place, lol.

[Sinker]

On 7/24/2018 at 10:42 PM, porkpie said:

Your a pickerel fisherman.  I invite you to try an ipilot unit.  Fishing 6 rods on Erie with me and 2 kids  in the boat and my terrova keeps me on the approximate heading I've chosen while I set riggers, send lead out on boards or drop dipsys etc. Sure I can do all that without it.  Do it a couple times and it will change your opinion entirely.  I guarantee it.  I also believed that side imaging was pretty much useless for trolling.  Until I spent some time on my last couple of trips using it to mark suspended schools in 50 fow, scroll back to them, drop a waypoint and then turn over top of them and catch fish.  I can do all of these tasks (save marking fish off the sides) with my gas engine and a greyscale fish finder if I wanted to.  But something more effective has come along so I'm going to use it.  If all that says nothing of my abilities to catch fish, I'm alright by it.  Because I've learned just how effective it can be.

I've used them many times. I know how well they work, but I thought we were talking about which graph to buy? I'm just saying that having the bowmount networked to your graph isn't all its cracked up to be.....just my opinion. I have seen many times where it is nothing but a head ache when things dont want to work right. I am a simpler is better kind of guy, and i do just fine that way.  I didn't say I didn't like ipilot though....never....not even once lol.... i love it. 

 

 

S. 

[David Chong]

If you want the most out of the trolling motor & i-Pilot then you're going to have to go with Humminbird. As long as the unit is compatible with the i-Pilot and can take a Navionics+ card, then you should be good to go!

[MCTFisher9120]

I don't have a I-Pilot setup but I do run a pair of Humminbird Helix 7's and am quite happy. I have a Helix 7 SI GPS at the back of the boat on it's 3rd season & a Helix 7 G2 DI GPS at the front of the boat that's on it's second season.Very happy with these unit's!