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]

I'd like to make a suggestion that I think will help you out. You can buy another cable to add length to the transducer cable and the power cables. You can also buy an additional mount for the front of your boat. That way you can use the display unit at either location. It's a lot more comfortable with the unit at the front of the boat when you are fishing and trying to look at the unit. Remember that the unit can be used in side scanning mode or 2 D regular depth finder mode.

Most guys use the Side Scanning mode while motoring around the lake looking for cover. They mark the cover while sitting in the drivers seat going in a very straight line and only going 3 to 4 mph. This works best and gives the best pictures of the bottom while in Side Scanning mode. Remember that you can view the side scanning mode screen along side the 2D Regular Depth Finder screen at the same time. When you see a stump or rock pile you simply freeze the screen for a second nd then move the screen cursor to the rock pile and push the mark button. This saves the rock pile as a GPS Waypoint which you can later navigate back to and fish. Unfreeze the screen and continue along the straight line until you finish your pass. Go back and move along another line parallel to the last line and offset by about 100 ft. You can map all the important spots on your lake and then record all those good looking spots as Way points.

Now after you have all your spots marked you can move to the front of the boat and fish. Just move the display unit up to the front of the boat and set the screen up to 2D mode and GPS map screen (split Screen Mode) and use the GPS screen to navigate to one of your way points. You should have a good minds eye view of the lay of the land around the waypoint or rock pile and be able to maneuver the boat right over the spot.

You can even run your older depth finder up on the front of the boat and use it to fish and just use the Humminbird SI unit to map the lake bottom.

NOTE: mounting the Humminbird SI transducer to the Trolling motor may not be the best place for side scanning operations. The side scanning transducer when used for side scanning must be mounted firmly in place and not moved easily. You have to be moving at around 4 mph to get the best results while scanning in Side Scanning mode. Since the trolling motor may rotate around that will make the side scanning part of the unit fail to operate right. IE you scene pictures will be blurry. Now you can use the Side scanning Sonars transducer on the trolling motor and then switch to 2 D mode and that will work great. But then you will have to look back to the back of the boat to see the screen unless you mount the screen up at the front of the boat with a second mount. You can wire both mounts to accept the control head or display unit. That will be the best way.

Some guys have two units and mount one at the front and one at the driver console.

Most people will mount the transducer on the back of the boats transom and away from any turbulent water flow. That's the key to getting good operations at high speed with the 2 D operations. SI operations won't work at high speeds. You must go slow to get the good SI pictures of the lake bottom on the screen.

I hope this information helps those that are thinking about buying one of these unit's or that have just purchased one.

Mounting the transducer in the right spot is very IMPORTANT. Critical in fact.

Any water turbulence or air bubbles will ruin the transducers ability to time the sound waves to the bottom and back correctly. Remember that sound travels faster though water than air and any air bubbles will screw up the timing of the sound waves to and from the bottom.

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 ordinary (?) but ill have to get closer to get a good view of it but its great for just idling around marking spots