Good graph for striper fishing

[tpunjack]

I was looking for opinions on which graph works the best for cumberland striper fishing. I'm trying to balance price and quality.

[adam7456]

What price range are you looking in?

I've been striper fishing pretty hard core for the last year. I have a Lowrance x125. It's a grayscale unit with 480x480 resolution and costs around $300 to $350 range. I could never really figure out what I was looking at. I would hear reports of people seeing schools of stripers or just plain seeing stripers but I never could. I was out with a guide a couple weeks ago just to get some questions answered like "What does a striper look like on a display". The guide had a 12 inch color Raymarine unit that cost $3,500. We got into so stripers and I was very suprised at what they looked like on his unit. It wasn't a huge arch like I expected it looked more like a long school of bait fish. The next day I went out to the same spot with my boat and wouldn't you know it I was seeing stripers left and right too. We boated 3 that morning. Having a good display and knowing what you are looking at are 2 totally different things. Now that I know what I'm looking at I'm pretty sure my $300 grayscale unit will work. Although a color unit would be much nicer.

Resolution is one of the key pieces you want to look at. The 480x480 is the highest you will find on a standard square unit. That is one reason I went with it.

[ARJ]

I use a Lowrance X-96, and I have no trouble marking the fish (bait and stripers). I also use it to find walleye, and again it marks the fish and bottom well. A couple of weeks ago, I used it near Wolf Creek (on the clay bank up the lake from the mouth of Wolf) and could mark the fish easily in the area. It would show they lying right on the bottom (turned out to be cats). It runs about $200.

Hope this helps.

[apb]

Lowrance X-85 is what I have used for the last 7-8 years. Does real well. They changed model numbers since I got that one, but I'm sure the replacement version does fine too.

Andrew