[TomFL]

Thanks for posting Tom. I have rigged up several old sounders with transducers I could "point" in different directions. They all worked more or less, but the Humminbird fishin buddy I have now works well enough to catch bait I can't see. You can also find fish under the bridges, but finding and catching is two different things.

Frank_S

For sure you hit the nail on the head with that one, Frank!

The humminbird just makes fishing that much more frustrating sometimes!

So far it has come in handy marking bait schools offshore, and I am really just learning about it and what I'm seeing on the screen. I've marked some cool fish along the seawalls and under docks. But yes, catching them is another thing entirely.

-T

 

[TomFL]

Any updates on the Humminbird? I am really looking hard at the 898c si, how do you like yours so far? Any info would be appreciated.

So far I really like it. I'm still learning everything the unit can do. I've been traveling a lot and usually bring the manual with me to browse on the plane and have at least one "AHA!" moment on each read. Suffice to say there are enough features on this thing to satisfy any fisherman.

As far as performance, I think it's great. The unit holds it's reading perfect up to about 40mph, which is better than any unit I've had that has a transom-mount transducer. There was no shoot-through hull transducer option when I purchased mine, might be one coming though. GPS fix is instantaneous.

I've been able to mark schools of bait offshore that were not visible on the surface; this alone is a great feature on days when bait is tough to find. Hard to put a price tag on this feature when you've got a boat load of guys, and are burning gas and fishing time looking for needed bait to hang from a kite.

Side scan is great to look at tree-lined shorelines, docks, etc. The only thing I find is that when I don't see fish on the screen, I tend to start off thinking "there's no fish here" and might not give a spot enough time.

For flats-only fishing I don't think the side-scan is a worthy feature. Seems it needs about 5-7' of depth before it'll show things far enough away from the boat that you don't spook them.

The installed maps are decent inshore, and somewhat lacking offshore. I bought mine flashed with some navionics upgrades, and it's got just about all the wrecks and hotspots on it which I think is worth the $$ rather than having to enter all those waypoints. All the channel markers are in the unit as well, which helps with navigation at night in areas you're not familiar with.

Overall I love the unit. It's easier and easier to use the more I play with it, and finding bait on tough days, for a live-bait guy like myself, is tough to put a price tag on.

The downside is that the accessories are expensive. I bought a second transducer and GPS antenna so I could swap the unit between boats, and honestly it was about 3x more than any other unit I've had. Seems about all the accessories are expensive, even if you just wanted to add features to the unit like a barometric pressure or storm watch feature, etc. So shop wisely if you're thinking of buying and get everything at once.

-T

 

[TomFL]

Jim, thanks for the tips, you've made some great points there.

As a disclaimer to anyone looking at the pics, these were from the first couple days I owned the unit, and as I'm still learning you can do a ton more with it/fine tune it like Jim mentions.

I'll try to post some better pics here in the next few days.

-T

 

[TomFL]

You guys are killing me.  ;D

Like you don't have enough toys already.....

Jim's got me itching to get back on the water and try his tips..