Good Depth Finder For Pontoon,

[Rawhawk]

Am trying to find a good depth finder for a 24' Pontoon boat, basically to help with fishing and to avoid damaging a pontoon. Am also curious about lighting requirements for a boat. First boat and loving it just inexperienced! Thanks for your help.

 

[Dunaruna]

Re: Good Depth Finder For Pontoon,

Welcome to i-boats,<br /><br />I just fitted a cheapie to my pontoon boat, garmin FF80. It gives me depth & temp which is all I need - not interested in fancy buttons and add ons but their are plenty on the market to chose from.<br /><br />More importantly you said you are interested in avoiding damaging the pontoons - to be affective that means mounting the transducer up front, now the fun begins Got to consider turbulence created by the pontoons and the transducer, also got to keep the transducer underwater.<br /><br />I'm interested in what others have to say but if you like I can post a pic of the bracket I made to mount the transducer.<br /><br />The navigation lights are the same as a monohull (in Australia anyway). Red light to port, green to starboard, clear (white) to stern & 360 deg clear for anchoring.<br /><br />Aldo

 

[Rawhawk]

Re: Good Depth Finder For Pontoon,

thanks for the reply, would the turbulence be because of the aluminum or the way the boat goes through the water.

 

[Dunaruna]

Re: Good Depth Finder For Pontoon,

Well - kinda both, on a monohull the transducer is mounted at the bottom of the transom - it is facing the correct way as the manufacturer intended. If you mount the transducer up front on a pontoon boat you you need mount it so that it faces the correct way but also you have two large round objects (the toons) creating wash and turbulence. Just to add more problems the aluminium can cause interference as opposed to fibreglass. I'm no transducer expert but from what I've read in these forums turbulence can cause strange readings on the screen.<br /><br />Aldo

 

[Scaaty]

Re: Good Depth Finder For Pontoon,

Hummingbird sells a suction cup attachment, but I don't think it will hold at speed.

 

[dy168]

Re: Good Depth Finder For Pontoon,

Rawhawk, you can go to fish-finder-review.com to see, they have a lot of info there.