which gps
 

best gps/depthfinder combo for the money to get for lake and close rigs.

They are all nice. Now days just depends on your price range. I have an lowrance HDS 7 touch. No complaints but wish I would've gotten the 9 lol

What did the 7 run you?


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1800 with structure scan. It's 200 less now. I got mine when I bought my boat 18 months ago

I want to another unit to place in my bow.

I got an elite 5 dsi on the console and up front. Nothing special but good for the money.

the chirp technology looks sweeeeeet! Havent researched them much though. We have an old lowrance on bay boat, and humminbird on bass boat. Humminbird is easier to navigate through, but I find it tracks worse than the lowrance.

I run a lowrance hds7 touch on my console and an elite 7 on my trolling motor. For simple navigation you can get by with almost any unit. If your in the marsh like Delacroix where one wrong turn will get you stuck then the only choice is lowrance.

This is not because the lowrance is a better unit. It's because standard maps has topo chips available for the lowrance units.

Your mapping needs will dictate what unit to buy. There are other map chips available but they all suck for around here because the marsh changes too much.

Tradition sonar and down imaging won't do much to show you fish in shallow water. Let's face it, if your boat is in 7 feet of water and the transducer is actually a foot under the hull draft then no specks are gonna be hanging around waiting to show up for a cool sonar pic with that big floating UFO above them.

Side imaging is only good for about twice the depth your in. I mean it sounds neat but that's the practicality of side imaging. If your in 7 feet of water then you'll make out stuff 14 feet from the transducer. Subtract from that the distance of the edge of the hull to your transducer and you will realize that at the end of the day the only way you will see trout is if you run over a retard fish.

Don't get me wrong. I like having sonar/electronics and would hate to fish without them. Just get your expectations right.

Just FYI, I'm gonna sell my elite 7 and mount a humminbird Onix on the bow. I'll keep the lowrance for navigation on the console.

To clarify a bit what RichWentFishing said. The standard mapping chips are just not for Lowrance units. You can also get them for Simrad units. I have a Simrad NSS8 on my skiff and the new NSS9evo2 on my bay boat and the chip works on both of them.

But his point is accurate. Standard Mapping ecards are the best way to go for the marsh so go with Lowrance HDS or Elite or Simrad unit.

I love my Simrad Nss 7. You can find it for under $700 now. I think I paid 850 at hodgesmarine.com

Yeah. Simrad is owned by the same company as lowrance. You can get an elite 7 for $500 bucks right now at tacklewarehouse.com

I have a raymarine AWSOME for the price

I got the elite 7 hdi a while back. I love it. I also saw the dragonfly 7 on sale recently. Can't go wrong with either

Anybody using Garmin? Their Echomaps look nice.

I have nothing but Garmin on both my boats and have no complaints.