New F/F GPS Combo advice (Update)

[ondarvr]

I’ve almost talked myself into thinking I need to buy a new F/F GPS combo, the old Garmin still works OK, but it started losing a few lines of pixels, it’s not color and no GPS.

I don’t fish the salt much anymore and it will be used in my sled 99% of the time, I do fish the Columbia and several lakes including Baker for Sockeye though.

It looks like I’ve narrowed it down a Lowrance, they just seem to have the best options for the money, and while it would be nice to get an HDS unit I just can’t justify the cost for what I do. It looks like the 4s and 5s would fit the bill, the 4 has a pretty good mapping standard and you can get the upgraded model with a gold chip for about $65 more, you need to chose between DSI and standard because they don’t have both on the same unit, the screen is small too. The loaded 4 is about $360.00. The 5 is nice, with both DSI and standard images, but you bump up a couple hundred more $$$ for the larger screen and more options.

What started this was my wanting to get GPS on the boat, the old Garmin worked well enough, but the cheapest route to get GPS is to buy a new combo unit. As with most things you can keep bumping up the price a hundred or so and get a better unit with more options, but I quickly get to where it’s not worth it for what I do. So it will be lower cost unit or nothing.

One problem is that in the dozen stores I’ve been in looking at units and asking questions, I haven’t found anyone that can answer many questions, and when the questions get specific I just get a blank stare. On all the GPS units I’ve used before there is always a line on the screen that shows where you’ve been so you can retrace it, one guy said you need to step up to the higher end units to get this feature, and that the 4s and 5s don’t do it. There is no way to check this in the store, so does anyone know if this is true? Plus any other advise would be great.

[Nelly]

I’ve almost talked myself into thinking I need to buy a new F/F GPS combo, the old Garmin still works OK, but it started losing a few lines of pixels, it’s not color and no GPS.

On all the GPS units I’ve used before there is always a line on the screen that shows where you’ve been so you can retrace it, one guy said you need to step up to the higher end units to get this feature, and that the 4s and 5s don’t do it. There is no way to check this in the store, so does anyone know if this is true? Plus any other advise would be great.

Hey Onda,
Going from a low-pixel black and white unit to a color high-pixel unit is the biggest single improvement you can make in a fishfinder/gps combo.
Since virtually all of the information you recieve from these units is visual, a larger, brighter and sharper display makes seeing things a lot quicker and easier on the eyes as well!

The "line" you speak of is known as a "Trail" or "track line" and it is an invaluable aspect of the plotter feature of these units. If you're in a searching mode looking for fish, the Trail tells you where you've already looked and when visibility closes in, backtracking your trail can get you back home.

The HDS 5 does indeed display trails and here is a link to the Owner's Manual that proves it: http://www.lowrance.com/en/Products/Marine/HDS-High-Definition-System/HDS-5m-Multifunction-GPS-Chartplotter/Downloads/HDS-5m-Operations-Guide---English/

You will not be dissapointed with your new Lowrance! They are simply outstanding!

[ondarvr]

Thanks Nelly

The problem is the HDS units start at 7 to 8 hundred and go up and I don't want to go that high, plus you also need to buy a transducer, they are great though. The Elite 4s and 5s are the ones I'm looking at. Had I been in the market for one at the sportsman show I would have sat in on the classes. I plan to buy one this week.

[king me]

All GPS units leave a slug trail. The trails disappear in time in the order they appeared in the first place that's why on the high end units u have a option of a permanent trail. On my HDS 10 I have a few of these trails marked with a red line instead of the standard black, so when I go back to the area I scouted on the off season for black mouth that has a poor bottom contour marked on the GPS map I just follow my own line. Works great!! Hope that helps a little, and I'm sure u will be happy with your LOWRANCE unit.

[ondarvr]

Thanks, that helps.

I thought that might be the case because every unit I'd used before did it, but like I said, getting good info in the strores can be difficult. My main reason for keeping the cost down is so I can also fund my retirement, I don't like the tast of dog food.

[ondarvr]

Update

I stopped in and after a hour or so of fiddling with different units ( the person at the store was very helpful and patient) I decided to go with the HDS 5 Gen 2. All was good until he said “let me see if we have one”. It was listed as having 3 options for mapping, Lake Insight, Insight USA and Nautic Insight, I wanted the Insight USA because it was the best for my needs. Although listed as an option in the display, it turns out this is not an option for the 5, only the 7 and up, they did have the Nautic version though. Like I said before, I don't fish the salt nearly as much as I used to, so my needs are more for fresh water and the Nautic has little info on lakes, it targets salt water. The guy helping me said they would offer me a chip to cover fresh water at a big discount to cover the lakes and I thought that sounds great, I'll have the best of both worlds. He said let me put in our demo chip so you can see how it looks. Well, I was very disappointed in the information and detail of the supposedly high end $200 Platinum chip, the stock mapping in some of the lower grade models was better and it wasn’t nearly as good as the Insight USA mapping in the HDS 7. So after 2 hours and saying “yes I will buy one” I walked out empty handed.

I’m not stepping up to the HDS 7, I just can’t justify the price jump from the HDS 5.

[Dan Carney]

Sorry I was slow to reply, I've been out of town. Last year I went thorough the same drill. I finally settled on the Lowrance Elite 5 DSI and seperately bought a Navionics Hotmaps chip for western waters (lakes and rivers). I use the installed basemap for fishing the sound. I have been quite happy with this unit, based upon price and performance. The DSI has the Down Scan Imaging from the higher end Structurescan units, very nice anthe GPS features are awesome. I was initially interested in HDS 5 with Structurescan, but just didn't want to spend that much money. I would definitely stay with a 5 in display as 4 is too small. If I could find any fault with the unit it is that it has 455/800 kHz transducer and sometimes I wish it also had 200 kHz. Not that big of an issue, but I did have to spend some time learning to interpret the displays, Robbo was very helpful in submitting some pics for me to look at, and he and Nelly both answered some questions about pics I posted from my own display. Hope that helps.
L8R
Dan

[ondarvr]

OK I bought one.....I picked up the Elite 4 combo with the gold chip. The small screen isn't a big issue, It’s mounted very close to where I sit, bigger is always better though. I just couldn’t justify the cost (double what I paid for this one) of an HDS unit, at least not for how I fish now.

I've used it twice, after getting used to it and playing around, it works OK, the only disappointment is the zoom feature and bottom tracking when zoomed. My old Garmin can track the bottom and stay zoomed in on the top 50 feet no matter what the depth is, with no adjustments or fiddling needed. This unit doesn't give you many zoom options and to get the best out of it you need to manually adjust the depth range as it changes. This is only an issue when fishing for Kokanee and Sockeye or similar fish that tend to suspend higher up in the water column over water that can be very deep.

The GPS works well.

[Dan Carney]

O,
I have been off the water lately working on the boat, but played with the controls a litle. I have the Elite 5 DSI and can place the screen in split zoom mode. On one side is the normal full range and on the zoom side I can zoom in to 4X. (My unit also has to be in manual depth mode.) I can then use the up and down arrows to place the zoom screen wherever I want it in the water column. I'm not sure if the Elite 4 can do this. I just did a software update and am not sure if this is a new feature or one I hadn't played with before. I hope this helps.
L8R
Dan

[ondarvr]

D
I can run mine in split zoom, but you need to set the depth manually at the deepest water you will be fishing over so it will track the bottom, and I'm not sure if I have a 4X zoom, I'll check, I've only used it in 2X. So when over 150 of water I am zoomed in on 75ft, which is too much. The problem is the second you go over 150ft it stops tracking the bottom and you lose info on the screen, so you need to manually move up to the next depth, which increases the number of feet you are zoomed in on. The water I fish over right now may range from 60 to 154', and yes, the extra 4' over 150 can cause it to lose the bottom, so I have to bump it up to the next depth. If I was using it over shallower water, or if it varied less, it wouldn't be an issue.

On my Garmin I can just set the depth range at 50ft and you get that on full screen and it continues to track the total depth perfectly at all times no matter how deep it is.

I have read the manual several times and will keep playing with it.

I'm also surprised it doesn't have the option to display volts on the screen.