fishfinder or conventional depth instruments?

[CharlesM]

Hello all

As my (hopefully) new boat will not have nav equipment I will need to add this.

In anyones experiance, should I add a fish finder or conventional depth instruments.

Are there any disadvantages in having only a fish finder?

Thanks
Charles

 

[henkm]

C,

Do a search on 'fishfinder', results max. 1 month old, in this forum.
You will find a thread of last week
http://www.ybw.com/forums/showflat.php?C...true#Post641646
answering your question.

Henk

 

[Sea Devil]

I find my Hummingbird fish finder with it's bottom display much more user friendly than my Raytheon all singing dancing echo sounder. You can watch the bottom shallow or deepen graphicly as well as reading - interpreting the numbers!

 

[Rohorn]

Hi....I had an Autohelm depth sounder for 12 years on my cat. Last year hit a rock and suffered consequences. Now refitted with a Furuno fish finder and am kicking myself for not doing this years and years ago. I think the term "fish finder" put me off, 'cos I loath fishing!
If they'd called them "storage echosounders" or "depth-plotters" or somesuch I'd have had one ages ago and probably wouldn't have suffered the character-forming experience. Funny how the wrong keywords put you off.
Still, at least I can say "if you ain't been shipwrecked, you ain't lived"!
Cheers.....R

 

[john_morris_uk]

Not a defence of Raytheon instruments (although we do use them) but if you have their ST60 graphics unit you can program it to show depth trends (along with water temp trends, battery voltage trends, etc....) Its not quite likje a fishfinder as it only shows the depth and of coures its not forward looking.

 

[aitchw]

I think more and more people are fitting them and using them as their primary depth display. Apart from the advantages already mentioned they also show what the nature of the ground is, ie. rocky, weedy soft etc. as well as significant features like wrecks, a big plus when choosing where to drop the hook.

 

[oldharry]

'Fishfinder' every time. Would not waste money on a conventional depth sounder.

At a glance depth, depth trends, nature of bottom (dead useful for anchoring), contours of bottom - useful if you want to beach specially in a bilge keeler, deep and shallow alarms all included for the same price as a sounder.

'Oh Bottom, thou art changed...' (The Bard) - Conventional sounders cannot do that effectively. (Sorry - eldest sons wierd teenage sense of humour, looking at fishfinder a long time ago)

They even tell you if there are fish about..... with an irritating little beep until you remember to switch the beeper off!