FraznDaf wrote:
I had asked this ? in another thread, but since you show a Lowrance Plotter sonar....
How do you like it? Im looking at buying one for my TI fishing Long Island sound and freshwater lakes. Just wondering if Down Scan Imaging worth extra $ or stick with standard sonar? Most fishing in water <100 ft and around reefs, structure etc but sometimes open water suspended fish???
Read on Cabelas guys not liking Lowrance on Yaks cause of water intrusion thru Chip slot???
Thanks for any tips!
I can only respond with my own experiences on the HDS-5 and they are mostly favorable. I use mine in blue water ocean conditions with the dual 50/200 hz transducer mounted inside the hull with marine goop. I have used it for almost 3 years in some pretty wet and windy conditions and have never had a problem with water intrusion and it sits naked in the boat with no protection. One caviot is that the cannon plugs are the weak link. If you run the boat without the sounder the plastic caps that are suppose to seat the cannon plugs fall off and I found rather worthless. I always seal the plugs using dielectric grease.
As for the performance the sounder and gps they are excellent. The sounder I use to catch bait in 15-40 feet and I fish between 80-300 feet. The gps is good to a knot and is very useful in the gulfstream which can run as high as 5 knots. The only complaint is that my HDS-5 (Gen 1) has a terrible software interface. It takes a thousand entries to do the most simplistic task. Also, mine has developed a sticky arrow selector button which sometime sticks and I have to escape out of. I believe this was improved in Generation 2 HDS's and definatley in the touch screen HDS's.
Overall I rate it 9/10 for surviving 3 years in a very harsh saltwater environment (only problem being a stick button). 10/10 for performance. 4/10 for software interface.
Hope that helps