New Humminbird

[BarkelyPup]

Anyone tried or purchased the new Humminbird fish finder with the sonar and 3d bottom view side finder that pratically puts your hook right in the 5lber's mouth. I'm thinking of purchasing one or at least trying to talk my wife and daugther into one for Fathers Day? Any info would be graciously accepted.

Thanks
BP

[stratos179]

I'm also thinking of getting one myself I just got a new-other boat and I really have to upgrade trolling motors if it wernt for that I would go buy one but i need a bigger troller first then its going to be sonar city for me if you get one let us know how it is.

[Tom523]

I have one and it works great. There is a yahoo group that helps you recognize what you are looking at and it helped me alot. Just go to yahoo groups and search sideimageing. It's great. If I see a submerged tree with fish around it 100' to the right. I move the cursor to to the tree and it marks the spot on my gps and captures the image on to my sd card.

[Moose1am]

When everyone who fishes realized how valuable these Humminbird Side Scanning Sonar Units are to we fishermen the fish will have no place to hide!

Humminbird has revolutionized fishing with these retail and now affordable units. Sure they now cost from $2000 to $1000 but after the rich buy all they can buy the price will drop some for those upper middle class fishermen with almost deep pockets. Then in a few years the lower middle class paycheck workers will be able to buy some of these.

Smart money is on the Humminbird 997 SI unit right now.

Maybe Lowrance will come out with a side scanning unit some day to compete with Humminbird and that will bring the price down some more.

Anyone tried or purchased the new Humminbird fish finder with the sonar and 3d bottom view side finder that pratically puts your hook right in the 5lber's mouth. I'm thinking of purchasing one or at least trying to talk my wife and daugther into one for Fathers Day? Any info would be graciously accepted.

Thanks
BP

[Moose1am]

Humminbird 797 or 787 unit only costs $1000 now. Sorry I can't remember those model numbers. Its' one or the other. This unit has more vertical pixels than the 997 units but the 997 units have more horizontal screen size and horizontal pixels. That helps if you are using the split screen in the side by side view. Still the 997 unit have 640 vertical pixels which is plenty of pixels to show you good high resolution definition.

I want one of these so badly that I can taste it.

If you have money and like to fish then you are missing the boat if you have not installed a side scanning sonar unit on your boat by now.

I see more and more of the Pros and even the Fishing guides are waking up to the capabilities of these side scanning sonars.

I only wish that Lowrance would get into this game and help with some competition. Competition will help bring the prices down.

There are many other high prices research type side scanning units which cost a great deal more than the Humminbird units. But Humminbird has brought the price down to where some fisherman can actually afford to buy these things.

If they were less than $500 I'd have one on my boat.

It's like draining the lake and showing where the fish and all the structure are. Or it would be like fishing in a clear water lake where you could see into the water for 150 ft to either side of the transducer.

And you also retain the ability to use the regular 2 Dimensional Sonar which is built into these units. So you are not loosing the older technology that you all are familiar with.

If you are a fishing guide then you would be smart to put some money on one of these units.

Every fishing guide that I know of has bought one of these this last year and they are all raving about what it can do for them. These guys are not technical like me but they are learning how to use these side scanning things and having fun with them. They are also learning more about their home lakes than they ever knew before. They thought they knew their home lakes but they have learned so much more with these units.

[Wormin]

How deep will these thing read in side scan mode, I can see it in shallow water but what about 30' or 50'. Seems that it would shut over top of it.

[Moose1am]

Replying late as I just found this question

I think that the 997 unit will go to 100 ft and 240 ft in each direction using the 445 kHz side scanning frequency. If you use the 800 kHz frequency it won't go at far to the side.

Lower sound wave frequency will penetrate much farther into the water. But the lower frequency won't show detail as well as the higher frequency sound wave. The Humminbird 997 unit can be switched to either of these two frequencies for side scanning operations. Plus it's dual or quadrabeam downward looking sonar can be used from the same transducer. So you can look down like a regular 2 D sonar unit at the same time with the same transducer as you are side scanning the bottom.

The dual-beam sonar will look straight down and out to the side using two different frequencies. 200 KHz and one other that I can't recall right now. The 200 KHz is the one that looks straight down in a 20 deg cone angle while the other looks more to the sides. It doubles the amount of bottom coverage that the regular 200 KHz transducer can see.

And the Quadrabeam Sonar unit (Optional purchase item) will look even farther out to the side in 2D mode. Again you can use the 2D and side scanning modes at the same time form the same transducer by simply using split screen views on the control head or display unit.

How deep will these thing read in side scan mode, I can see it in shallow water but what about 30' or 50'. Seems that it would shut over top of it.

[stratos179]

I finally bought a 797c2 si I put it on yesterday and will try it out saturday I cant wait I'll let you know how it works theres so many things this thing does i dont know if I'll ever figure all of them out.

[stratos179]

Well I put the 797 in the water today and all I can say is these are unbeliveable I went to a spot I usally fish in the mornings I could tell that it had a rocky bottom by feel but my old unit never showed anything other than a hard bottom well on the 797 I could clearly see several good sized rock piles scattered over the whole area which makes me like that spot even more and the balls of baitfish you see on this thing are as clear as can be I was using the split screen and there were several things you would see on the SI that the regular sonar didnt show all I can say is so far I love it although I have to move my transducer because I lose the bottom as soon as i plane off I went and bought a SD card today so I can take pics with it I dont like having to take my Hot Maps card out to use the SD card I would have thought that the hot maps would load on a hard drive on the unit and you could remove the card either it dont work that way or I'm doing something wrong but other than that I would recomend buying one normally I couldnt afford it but Ive been doing some work on the side thats let me upgrade several (toys) on my boat.

[MsgMills]

I was wanting one for my boat as well especially for the front, since that is the place it would be more advantageous I believe. Maybe I'll sell my brand new Lowrance 5200c GPS unit and save a little more and then get me one of them Hummingbird ones.

Glad you like the new unit and hope it does well for you...

[stratos179]

I did buy a ram mount for it so I can turn it to the front I can see it good enough to tell if theres something out of the ordenary (?) but ill have to get closer to get a good view of it but its great for just idleing around marking spots

[Moose1am]

The 997 Si Unit has two SD slots so that you can keep the Hot-spots SD chip in while adding a second SD chip to use to take snap shots of what your screen sees. That way you don't have to swap SD chips like you have to do with the 797 SI unit.

I wish that the 797 SI unit had two chips.

That's the main difference between the two units other than the screen size.

But one advantage that the 797 SI has over the larger more expensive 997 SI unit is the vertical pixel count. The less expensive and smaller display is taller and therefore has 640 vertical pixels. Which is great for showing fish and the bottom in 2 d mode.

I want the 997 SI bad but my budget won't allow me to get the 797 SI yet. LOL Whoa is me

Congratulations on the new purchase. I have read so many post like yours from proud new owners of the Humminbird SI series.

Well I put the 797 in the water today and all I can say is these are unbeliveable I went to a spot I usally fish in the mornings I could tell that it had a rocky bottom by feel but my old unit never showed anything other than a hard bottom well on the 797 I could clearly see several good sized rock piles scattered over the whole area which makes me like that spot even more and the balls of baitfish you see on this thing are as clear as can be I was using the split screen and there were several things you would see on the SI that the regular sonar didnt show all I can say is so far I love it although I have to move my transducer because I lose the bottom as soon as i plane off I went and bought a SD card today so I can take pics with it I dont like having to take my Hot Maps card out to use the SD card I would have thought that the hot maps would load on a hard drive on the unit and you could remove the card either it dont work that way or I'm doing something wrong but other than that I would recomend buying one normally I couldnt afford it but Ive been doing some work on the side thats let me upgrade several (toys) on my boat.