Electronics

[JDP]

10 hours ago, GPSguru said:

Deepest that I am going to find is almost 300ft, but that is 30 miles out. Mostly I fish in 150 - 20Oft. The absolute deepest we are likely to encounter is Hurd’s Deep, just off the channel islands where it is 550ft, however, that would be a 65 mile steam for me.

Yes thats what I would consider shallow, its not unit I go deeper than 300m that I consider using the deep drop electric reels.

5 hours ago, Odyssey said:

Ok…

If I was to stick to Simrad I could go single 16in to go with existing 7inch as well or 2 x 12in…. 

there is a chance I may move over to another brand and that would be 19 inch high resolution screen with a 12in low res for radar… but that’s undergoing discussion. Sadly the cost of moving over entirely to Raymarine or Garmin is not going to work due to the radar and backbone costs

the research continues…. Still need to work out to how to best fit in all on the helm 😬😬

There are things I really like about the Simrad gear but its two of the 16in screens and one 12 that have put me off them a bit. It might of been fixed on the 16's but both the ones Ive used have been very temperamental in regards to the touch screens, as in not responding. Another issue which I've even had in the smaller ones is how they shut down so often when you start pushing boats hard into big seas. This might be a safety feature to protect the units but Ive had it happen in four different boats. I do like the sonar black screen option which really makes any fish big or small stand out well. The colour palettes on the garmins don't seem to offer black. Like you say, changing over can be costly but if people can see the gear you own working on the boat would help with re-selling it on. I do have two 24in Simrads I'm selfing for a friend. One is new in box and the other has some issues, hence the new one under warranty. However he decided to move away from Simrad to Garmin. Aus price is $12000 neg for the two which is half price on new. 

You mention the Raymarine which is the only unit I've not had any experience using, they just don't seem popular with the fishing community as much here, yes sailing boat users seem to like them. A good friend back in the UK uses high end Raymarine and has for quite sometime. He might actually be someone you are familiar with as you both have similar target species. He fishes from the IOW from his Lochin out of Bembridge. Most of our marine rescue vessels got a deal to change over to Raymarine but these are used pretty much as plotters only as we don't do underwater rescue so sonar isn't so important.

[JDP]

4 hours ago, JonC said:

Do you actually need new tech? I know it’s great to have novelties onboard but what more  would you get out of it? As a business it would take years to recover the cost of such upgrades as opposed to running the same kit. 
If you wanted to run panoptix type sonar you could just add another new plotter. As for the external display could you use a water resistant monitor on a usb cable? 
 

Realistically the tech hasn't changed that much, simply small improvements which often take more user skill to actually use. Yes live-scope has improved but you really need flat conditions and be prepared to constantly stare at a screen most of the day. In saying that, being able to see a fish, tell what it is and how big it is, then put a lure right in front of it is pretty exciting to watch.

The Garmin 8400 series that I use have now been around for quite a few years. I like the way I can integrate other items such as Garmin in reach, phones, Fusion stereo and electric motors etc. The best thing for me is the fact that our coast is so big that much of it isn't surveyed, meaning reveal, G3 vision and Navionics charts aren't always useful. Being able to build my own charts and colour code each 30cm change in depth allows me to build my own charts and quickly understand the underwater terrain. I can have endless custom made charts from shallow water river systems to deeper water beyond the continental shelf, much of which I do cursing at around 20kts. Most people though won't even know their electronics are able to do this. Quickdraw has been around for many years with most manufacturers, it would be interesting to know how many use it that have it, also how many share theirs or download other peoples. Ive downloaded quick draw charts from online for river systems Im heading to for the first time.

[Odyssey]

Ok…. More questions! 
 

Is structure scan worth it? I don’t do a huge amount on the reefs and no wrecking. So…. Does a good chirp sonar do a good enough job? I think this is one for @JDP
 

Due to the costs I’m wondering whether a high quality chirp transducer would give me enough detail without needing downscan…. I’m thinking a B75 Airmar transducer and either sonar hub or new NSS Evo 3s MFD to go with my NSE12…. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Odyssey

[JDP]

7 hours ago, Odyssey said:

Ok…. More questions! 
 

Is structure scan worth it? I don’t do a huge amount on the reefs and no wrecking. So…. Does a good chirp sonar do a good enough job? I think this is one for @JDP
 

Due to the costs I’m wondering whether a high quality chirp transducer would give me enough detail without needing downscan…. I’m thinking a B75 Airmar transducer and either sonar hub or new NSS Evo 3s MFD to go with my NSE12…. 

In my opinion hell yes its worth it. However there are many people who haven't taken the time to learn how to use and give up in frustration rather than do a little research on how to use it.
Firstly when I had Simrad and Lowrance I also found it to be extremely good, however the gt51 transducer from Garmin has a low 260 frequency which allows for much deeper water scanning. Downside of lower frequency though is definition, yes I can find structure to the sides of my boat at depths of 140m deep and around 200m either side of the boat but I will struggle seeing any fish in deeper water. In saying that I can pick up large schools of mackerel off to the sides of the boat and once I see those hazy clouds of bait to the side of the boat I can swing the boat around to check over the top if there's anything bigger underneath the boat using chirp. 

This is an old video now from 2015 which gave a good representation of one of the transducers Im running. I can't remember if he does any deepwater sides caning but if I remember he does do some shallow stuff. Just heading out to polish the boat my daughter skippers (50ft cougar cat) so will get back on this later with a few tips on side can. By the way I have the two 24 ins Simrads with 3d and sides can in my garage for sale right now, these are monster sized screens!!!!!...also have 5 new Shimano game rods with the tags on them, about time you made a business trip!!!!
 

 

[Odyssey]

@JDP

Thank you 🙂 much appreciated! 
 

looks like it’s a new 3 in on through hull transducer and NSS EVO3S 12 inch on order soon… still keeping an NSE12 for navigation as it works fine so that’ll save me a few ££££… 

Now to rob a bank to pay for it all 🙄

[JDP]

Unfortunately I can't put my hands on screen shots from my main computer when I was using my Simrad but these are some shallow soundings to around 30m from the old lowrance which wasn't as good as the Simrad in my opinion.

These have been greatly reduced in size to post on here, so lacking some detail. The small fish which Ive put a red circle around are about 4ins in size. The shallow water image shows the ripples on the sand and some of the rocks show deep cracks, which helps me find great spots to free dive for lobsters. That transducer on 455khz was pretty good up to 70m in depth.

These screen shots were early days of getting to know side scan at the time. By tweaking the brightness and contrast more than in these images you can really make the picture pop and see fish better.

People will say this gear is no good in rough weather but thats simply because they don't work around the conditions. If you try sides scan heading into big seas or side on, the results will be poor but if you scan running with the wave direction its still possible to get good results. Its simply changing the approach to an area to get a better image. 

I do have the gain up high in these images as I liked seeing my soft plastics and micro jigs on the screen and was willing to put up with how this looks to be able to see them.

Because I scan at depths around 100-140m the Garmin gt51 allows for a lower frequency of 260. This has drawbacks though, so for me its just, for finding ground or big schools of baitfish which are normally mackerel like the ones we get in the UK. Also the more depth you go the wider the image will be, so trying to view 200m each side even on my 12ins hd screen can be hard to make make out.
    
I had best results with mine through hull on one of the boats I owned a while back. Having them transom mounted will often pick up part of the outboard or sterndrive leg. I had to trim my engine up quite high when scanning to avoid this. 

[Odyssey]

I’m looking at a through hull transducer https://www.cactusnav.com/simrad-totalscan-thru-hull-transducer-with-medium-high-chirp-p-27181.html?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvJud_qD4ggMV1cLtCh339Qd1EAQYASABEgI4XPD_BwE

Im on a pod with outboards so stern Mount won’t be useful for me as I’ll be looking to motor at 10-12 knots looking for bird/whale for the tuna before dropping to 6knts when trolling. 
 

Its the drilling a hole in my hull I’m dreading 😬 I may get it done professionally as it’ll likely need a faring block unless I get it right  on the keel….

[Andy135]

1 hour ago, Odyssey said:

I’m looking at a through hull transducer https://www.cactusnav.com/simrad-totalscan-thru-hull-transducer-with-medium-high-chirp-p-27181.html?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvJud_qD4ggMV1cLtCh339Qd1EAQYASABEgI4XPD_BwE

Im on a pod with outboards so stern Mount won’t be useful for me as I’ll be looking to motor at 10-12 knots looking for bird/whale for the tuna before dropping to 6knts when trolling. 
 

Its the drilling a hole in my hull I’m dreading 😬 I may get it done professionally as it’ll likely need a faring block unless I get it right  on the keel….

Have you considered a shoot-through transducer instead? I had an Airmar M265 CHIRP one on JG and it was excellent at holding bottom at all speeds with no interference or prop wash. And no holes in the hull.

https://www.echomasterdirect.co.uk/In_Hull_Transducers

The M260/265 series is on the steep side, but there are more basic options available that might need your needs.

 

[Odyssey]

54 minutes ago, Andy135 said:

Have you considered a shoot-through transducer instead? I had an Airmar M265 CHIRP one on JG and it was excellent at holding bottom at all speeds with no interference or prop wash. And no holes in the hull.

https://www.echomasterdirect.co.uk/In_Hull_Transducers

The M260/265 series is on the steep side, but there are more basic options available that might need your needs.

 

Looks like could be a good option 🙂 bit pricey so may need to shop around see what options are…

CHIRP is kind of a must if I’m upgrading, water temp I maybe able to get via an external sensor but if I don’t need to drill holes in the hull that would be useful 🤣🤣🤣

[Odyssey]

6 hours ago, Andy135 said:

Have you considered a shoot-through transducer instead? I had an Airmar M265 CHIRP one on JG and it was excellent at holding bottom at all speeds with no interference or prop wash. And no holes in the hull.

https://www.echomasterdirect.co.uk/In_Hull_Transducers

The M260/265 series is on the steep side, but there are more basic options available that might need your needs.

 

What the clarity like? Did you get much detail on the bottom as well as bait fish high in the water? 
 

Its looking like a very good solution so far as I can put a sonar hub in and that’ll give me CHiRP functionality with my existing MFDs so hopefully saves me a few £££ and I can put that to the transduxer 

[Andy135]

1 hour ago, Odyssey said:

What the clarity like? Did you get much detail on the bottom as well as bait fish high in the water? 
 

Its looking like a very good solution so far as I can put a sonar hub in and that’ll give me CHiRP functionality with my existing MFDs so hopefully saves me a few £££ and I can put that to the transduxer 

The shoot-through CHIRP images were always clearer/crisper than the transom-mounted CHIRP I had on Apache and on JG, due to the fact that the shoot-through transducer is upstream of the transom and prop wash, so pretty much zero turbulence or bubbles to interfere with the image.

Detail was fine for fishing - it was able to pick up a wreck at 18kts. You can see some fish downtide in mid-water on the image below.

[JDP]

9 hours ago, Odyssey said:

I’m looking at a through hull transducer https://www.cactusnav.com/simrad-totalscan-thru-hull-transducer-with-medium-high-chirp-p-27181.html?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvJud_qD4ggMV1cLtCh339Qd1EAQYASABEgI4XPD_BwE

Im on a pod with outboards so stern Mount won’t be useful for me as I’ll be looking to motor at 10-12 knots looking for bird/whale for the tuna before dropping to 6knts when trolling. 
 

Its the drilling a hole in my hull I’m dreading 😬 I may get it done professionally as it’ll likely need a faring block unless I get it right  on the keel….

At least thats only a small hole to put in the boat, I also have an airmar 175hw cut into mine which is a big hole to cut. Ive put 1kw in most boats Ive owned myself as they've been quite straightforward to install. The boat I have now had one was fitted by a dealership and they have the arrow pointing slightly off from where it should be. It still works ok but it bugs me that a place that charged $750 to the previous owner installed it slightly out. I have tried removing it but once the sealant is set there seems to be no budging. 

I can't really comment on how sidescan will be at 12kts as I used mine in deeper water at slower trolling speeds with my Lowrance and Simrad (also the Garmin). My guess would be put it on 455khz and around 50-60m each side of the boat and see how it goes. You might find the 6kts running speed to be the best though. On traditional sonar in chirp I was able to show bottom still even on the higher 200khz over 300m and 450-500m using 83khz. 

With the transducer you are installing, even if its facing the wrong way you can easily sort that out simply on the headhunt in the menu by flipping the image.

Edited December 5, 2023 by JDP

[JDP]

7 minutes ago, Andy135 said:

The shoot-through CHIRP images were always clearer/crisper than the transom-mounted CHIRP I had on Apache and on JG, due to the fact that the shoot-through transducer is upstream of the transom and prop wash, so pretty much zero turbulence or bubbles to interfere with the image.

Detail was fine for fishing - it was able to pick up a wreck at 18kts. You can see some fish downtide in mid-water on the image below.

Is this in feet or metres ? Even if it is metres, its still very shallow water and looks like a pretty weak signal to me, which might just be due to the speed. Do you have any screen shots bellow planing speeds ? Is this a Lowrance or Simrad.

[Andy135]

3 minutes ago, JDP said:

Is this in feet or metres ? Even if it is metres, its still very shallow water and looks like a pretty weak signal to me, which might just be due to the speed. Do you have any screen shots bellow planing speeds ? Is this a Lowrance or Simrad.

Metres. Lowrance. Image at below planing below.

And a side scan of the same wreck at low speed.

[JDP]

5 minutes ago, Andy135 said:

Metres. Lowrance. Image at below planing below.

And a side scan of the same wreck at low speed.

Do you ever experiment with different pallet colours for both traditional down and sidescan ? colour 13 was always my favourite or dark blue on the Lowrance and amber on the sidescan. I found I could adjust the colour gain so that marine growth on the bottom showed as green and where ever I found green there would be fish. On sidescan I adjust so that the front side of objects are almost white and the shadows black, which helps seperate and define objects better. 

Thats a cracking looking wreck, wish we had some that shallow locally, here they are mostly in 130m+ or on the rocks. 

On the simrad I like the black background, especially when looking for bait with marlin and tuna feeding on them.

[JonC]

34 minutes ago, Andy135 said:

Metres. Lowrance. Image at below planing below.

And a side scan of the same wreck at low speed.

Is that the Camberwell? 
The Covid enquiry resumes tomorrow, I’m sure Hugh will be asking if it was really necessary to uninvite me. 

[Andy135]

15 minutes ago, JonC said:

Is that the Camberwell? 
The Covid enquiry resumes tomorrow, I’m sure Hugh will be asking if it was really necessary to uninvite me. 

No, it's the Highland Brigade, off Dunnose Head.

[Andy135]

33 minutes ago, JDP said:

Do you ever experiment with different pallet colours for both traditional down and sidescan ? colour 13 was always my favourite or dark blue on the Lowrance and amber on the sidescan. I found I could adjust the colour gain so that marine growth on the bottom showed as green and where ever I found green there would be fish. On sidescan I adjust so that the front side of objects are almost white and the shadows black, which helps seperate and define objects better. 

Thats a cracking looking wreck, wish we had some that shallow locally, here they are mostly in 130m+ or on the rocks. 

On the simrad I like the black background, especially when looking for bait with marlin and tuna feeding on them.

I'm between boats so I don't have any head units to experiment with, but when I did have them I found the green palette seemed to work best to my eyes. The other colour options just didn't seem to show contrast or definition as clearly.

[Odyssey]

New (to me) MFD being collected tomorrow… a road trip with Pip to Hamble marina to pick up a nearly new Simrad NSS Evo3s 9 inch. (Will need to give the truck a wash and polish as it’s a very posh part of the boat world 😬) 

Plan to put the 7in out on deck and network it so that my anglers can see what’s going on 🙂 

Not sure on transducer yet but at least I’ve made a start on deciding what gear to go for 🤣🤣🤣

Edited December 19, 2023 by Odyssey

[JonC]

8 hours ago, Odyssey said:

New (to me) MFD being collected tomorrow… a road trip with Pip to Hamble marina to pick up a nearly new Simrad NSS Evo3s 9 inch. (Will need to give the truck a wash and polish as it’s a very posh part of the boat world 😬) 

Plan to put the 7in out on deck and network it so that my anglers can see what’s going on 🙂 

Not sure on transducer yet but at least I’ve made a start on deciding what gear to go for 🤣🤣🤣

I hope that you are going there well tooled up? Can get nasty down there. 

[Odyssey]

2 hours ago, JonC said:

I hope that you are going there well tooled up? Can get nasty down there. 

I’ve got the dog, she gets violent if she thinks someone will steal her ball 

[JDP]

22 hours ago, Odyssey said:

New (to me) MFD being collected tomorrow… a road trip with Pip to Hamble marina to pick up a nearly new Simrad NSS Evo3s 9 inch. (Will need to give the truck a wash and polish as it’s a very posh part of the boat world 😬) 

Plan to put the 7in out on deck and network it so that my anglers can see what’s going on 🙂 

Not sure on transducer yet but at least I’ve made a start on deciding what gear to go for 🤣🤣🤣

You should of made the business trip here, I still have two game outfits and two 24in Simrads with all the control boxes, transducers, remotes, radio and I believe auto pilot controller. Marlin are starting to turn up too!!!!! 

[Odyssey]

18 hours ago, JDP said:

You should have made the business trip here, I still have two game outfits and two 24in Simrads with all the control boxes, transducers, remotes, radio and I believe auto pilot controller. Marlin are starting to turn up too!!!!! 

Don’t tempt me…. It’s howling 50mph winds here, work is 💩 I could do with some sunshine in my life 

[Odyssey]

On 12/5/2023 at 1:38 PM, Andy135 said:

Have you considered a shoot-through transducer instead? I had an Airmar M265 CHIRP one on JG and it was excellent at holding bottom at all speeds with no interference or prop wash. And no holes in the hull.

https://www.echomasterdirect.co.uk/In_Hull_Transducers

The M260/265 series is on the steep side, but there are more basic options available that might need your needs.

 

Back to talking transducers….

I don’t suppose you got any photos of their drifting over fish? It looks like a great unit but don’t want to spend the money without having an idea that it’s going to cover my needs….

[Andy135]

2 hours ago, Odyssey said:

Back to talking transducers….

I don’t suppose you got any photos of their drifting over fish? It looks like a great unit but don’t want to spend the money without having an idea that it’s going to cover my needs….

No pics.