Fish Finder (Decent and Affordable)

[mrokusek]

fishless, what model number did you end up getting?  Maybe I'll make that as my starting point.  Seems like the Hummingbirds were more affordable when looking at DSI & Sonar combined units.

[Fishless]

my graph is the hummingbird  597 ci HD, still playing with it to figure it out, totally different command functions from my eagle graphs

[sandman]

Found one situation last weekend where the i-Pilot doesn't work. Wind quartering from behind and trying to maintain a drift at a speed less than the wind pushes you . I would be drifting towards the bank and the power level would be on '0' so no steering. Had to turn around and troll back into the ind to make it track reasonably straight.

That 'anchor' function works pretty well to if there's a little breeze. No wind and it goes nuts trying to keep you on a spot.

[mrokusek]

Fishless, I took a look at the 597ci HD that you have.  It has dual beam plus and power of 4000W PTP, but doesn't have down imaging.  I did take a look at the few models that contain both dual beam plus and down imaging, but for some odd reason, they lower the power down to 2400W PTP.  That's a concern and I don't know why they did that.  I'd rather fork over the money to get all features and at 4000W, but can't find a Hummingbird model like that.  So, I may check out Lowrance at this point.  Did you go through this decision point as well whether or not to get down imaging with less power or just get the dual beam plus at higher power? 

[Fishless]

mine must be the 597ciHD DI model weird because on the front removeable face plate for SD card it does not have the DI on it but looking at them online it shows it? but mine has down imaging