Best small boat inshore fishfinder??

L

LurcherNZ

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Jan 29, 2007
Messages
31
I am setting up a small boat (13 foot) to be used for coastal inshore fishing over foul ground. Fishing will be done at depths of 300M or less (mostly 100M or less).

I am looking at fish finders. I had a look on ebay and there are quite a few around the US$200 mark or less. I will be running the fishfinder from a lead acid battery (7ah) as my motor is a pull start.

I know very little about fishfinders can any one make any sugestions?

I am tempted by the Garmin 160C
I have a map76S GPS. Is there anyway I can interface it with the fishfinder to the GPS (the GPS has a computer connection cable).

Thanks in Advance
John
South Island
New Zealand
 
W

whiteman

Petty Officer 3rd Class
Joined
Oct 7, 2003
Messages
98
Re: Best small boat inshore fishfinder??

Fishing in 1,000' of water? Lurcher, you will need something with huge levels of pixels and lots of power. This'll quickly get you in to high end units from Furuno like their FCV-585. I fish regularly in 20-30m of saltwater and my Lowrance x135 with a 480x480 pixel count is good but not brilliant. Over 50m I would upgrade.
As an NZer, you should have a look at Navman stuff as well.
 
dingbat

dingbat

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Nov 20, 2001
Messages
16,317
Re: Best small boat inshore fishfinder??

It;s not going to be cheap. Your going to need a min.of 600 watts RMS and a 50hz. transducer to get a decent picture at those depths.
 
Texasmark

Texasmark

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Dec 20, 2005
Messages
14,778
Re: Best small boat inshore fishfinder??

Just curious since I fish water usually 7m or less.

What do you fish for and how do you fish for it in 300m of water? Do you bottom fish, or suspend fish? If suspending, how deep? Do you troll?

Just curious what others do.

Mark
 
W

whiteman

Petty Officer 3rd Class
Joined
Oct 7, 2003
Messages
98
Re: Best small boat inshore fishfinder??

Texasmark said:
Just curious since I fish water usually 7m or less.

What do you fish for and how do you fish for it in 300m of water? Do you bottom fish, or suspend fish? If suspending, how deep? Do you troll?

Just curious what others do.

I fish up to 100m and this is usually in the bottom couple of meters (sometimes anchored, sometimes drift) using a two hook paternoster rig. Sometimes the sounder will pick up fish activity at higher depths so I may try these for a time. My sounder clearly picks up where the rig is so I know I'm at the right depth. When I troll it is usually in the 10-20m depth range unless there are other signs like bird life or tide flows. When anchoring in over 20m you really need some sort of "anka yanka".

Mark
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