new gps

[gwiff100]

i am leaning towards the Humminbird 688ci, i have heard some complaints about gps not working the greatest with humminbirds, is there any truth to this rumor? if so i would be going with the ELITE 5hdi.. these are the two units i have to decide between (limited budget)

[CaptainMusky]

I believe the issues with the GPS were isolated to internal GPS on the Humminbird units. From what I can tell, you just get a puck now with the purchase so those issues should be rectified.

I dont own one personally because I have all Lowrance stuff. Never an issue with the internal GPS on the Lowrance units. I lock on in my garage within 30 seconds every time.

A puck would be nice in some installations, but for me, the internal GPS is so important because I use my GPS on my ATV in the winter and its just plug in and go. I dont have to worry about mounting a puck somewhere, or something else to break.

[gwiff100]

thank you musky, I was kinda leaning towards the lowrance units, how about the mapping software? is navionics as good as lake master?

[CaptainMusky]

Here are the chips I have: 2012 Lowrance Lake Insight Pro, LakeMaster MN 2011 (last year for Lowrance) and Navionics Platinum.

The Lowrance chips are phenomenal! They are IDENTICAL to my Lakemaster chip BUT it includes Lake of the Woods, Rainy, etc all on ONE chip where you had to bend over with LakeMaster and get two.

The Navionics is a very nice chip as well. The nice feature there is you get free updates for 1 year that you can download from the website and place on the chip. That is nice, though I havent done it myself.

Otherwise comparing Navionics to Lowrance/LakeMaster is a give and take type thing. Some lakes are better on one chip, while others are better on the other one. Its nice to have both and then compare them. In my boat I usually have both units running at the same time so I can look at them to notice differences. In the winter I just go with my Lowrance chip since I have the Navionics app on my phone.

I dont know if it will change what you are looking for in electronics, but Lowrance just announced some sweet deals, lowering pricing and having rebates, etc on some models. Might want to check that out in case it changes options for you budget wise. THough I think you would be happy with the Elite because they are really solid units.

I am trying to find loose change in the couch cushions to get a HDS 9 Touch, but I will have to sacrifice one of my other units to do so.

[gwiff100]

I might have to check out some of the deals then. I am currently running a alumacraft navigator 165 so I don't have a ton of room on the dash (main reason I was going with the elite 5 hds (downscan, gps + regular radar).

thank you for the comments on the lakeinsite, I haven't read/heard much about them, however I am def leaning that way now... I hate the fact you had to buy separate chips for low.

[CaptainMusky]

My buddy has the same boat, with a full windshield (not sure you have that or a side console) and yeah it is a bit small in the cockpit. What he ended up doing was mounting a swingarm type mount to the boat's rail vs putting it on the console itself. This way he could swing it around to view it from the front, etc better as well.

Knowing what I know now, if I was to buy ONE chip and only one chip, it would absolutely hands down be the Lowrance one. Dont get the HD, just the Pro chip. The HD has the shaded relief on it, only difference and it goes away when you zoom in to ranges that you would likely use in a fishing scenario.

I had long used the LakeMaster chips and really enjoyed how they seemed to have the most detail, but I assure you these Lowrance chips from what I have seen and I have them side by side are identical for the lakes I fish. I was REALLY nervous when the announcement was made that LakeMaster was no longer supported for Lowrance. Now, not at all.

[gwiff100]

I just looked at some of the lakes I typically fish in Kandiyohi county. most of them unfortunetly aren't listed on the chip. They are bigger lakes in the area as well.

it is just the side counsel. my plan is to just go with the smaller unit then hopefully in a couple years when we upgrade boats (wife is already on board) I can use it as my secondary unit..

[CaptainMusky]

gwiff, if you want to PM the name of the lakes in question I can take some snapshots from my chip and show you what it displays. I could show you Lakemaster, Lowrance and Navionics since I have them all.

If it was on the 2011 Lakemaster chip it will be on the Lowrance Chip, same detail. It is possible that those lakes are not High Definition and just have some base map.

If you go to this link you should be able to get a good idea of what is on the Navioncs chip...

http://www.navionics.com/en/webapp

[CaptainMusky]

Not sure how well these will come through. Purple contour lines is lowrance chip.

G lake

D lake

E lake

[gwiff100]

Okay so they are on the lake i site chip... For some reason they weren't listed on the webste but yet they had some small slews listed. Looks like the insite pro is the way to go.

What unit were you using when the pictures were taken? I am so torn on what to but... Lowrance to me has the better name. I like the fact the elite 5 has both downs can and reg sonar.

[CaptainMusky]

I was using my hds 5 which I have setup for ice fishing. I also have and hds 7 that I use on my ATV on the ice. I usually have my lowrance chip in the 7 and have the navionics in the 5. I don't find myself using the lakemaster chip much anymore.

[gwiff100]

im sure your getting sick of talking to me about this. But what is the big difference if you know between the hds and the elite? I know with the elite I can get down scan, but I didn't think you could with the hds, and the hds is 200 more.

[ClownColor]

My opinion...get the HDS. Great deals come spring if you can wait. HDS is a great base unit with traditional 2d sonar and gps . But u can add things to this unit at a later date like ss and ds.. Also, lowrance came out with a lot of other add ons to their HDS units like wifi. I run the HDS 5 with ss and though I'd love a larger screen, the cost for how often I fish wasn't worth it. It really is a great unit. Lowrance did a great job on this.

[CaptainMusky]

Hds units allow for a lot more flexibility and expandability than elites. You can network elites together using Ethernet but you cannot do nmea 2000 which an hds will do both. Regarding downscan the hds units can have what's called structure scan. For hds gen 1 or 2 models its and expandable module that you connect to. The touch units its built in. Structure scan gives you down scan and side imaging.

Nmea 2000 will allow you to have all sorts of onboard diagnostics from your motor or many other things including radar, sonic hub for radio, onboard WiFi that you can connect tablets and smartphones to and view your hds touch units.

I don't want to sound like the I'm talking down the elite units because I am not. They are great and IMO the elite 7hdi or 5 hdi are a model I would absolutely consider. They key with them is price obviously and the fact you can get downscan (no side image) along with traditional sonar. The elites will be a bit simpler to use as there are less settings to deal with.

There are far more capabilities with an hds unit than an elite but that comes with cost and to an extent complexity.

It would be good for you to probably play around with different models in a store. The scheels in st cloud has them all setup and you could mess around with them.

You really couldn't go wrong with either its more about where you see yourself going with it and what you all want in your boat for electronics.

When I bought my hds units the elites were not at all what they are now. I may have swayed had they been. But with the gen 2 and touch units there are so many sweet things available now and coming that I could go on and on and still miss some.

How about recording your own maps as you out around on your favorite lake? Then overlay that map on your GPS for future runs? Map chips are great but as you've found there are gaps and some lakes aren't real accurate. Spenda day and a few gallons of gas and make your own.

[gwiff100]

one thing I may have neglected to mention is that I consider myself a novice open water fisherman. I have always fished open water but up until last summer I was always the fishing buddy and never the captain. So everything that comes with owning/operation a boat and fishing is all relatively new to me. Initially that is why I was even looking at the h-bird units b/c they were very user friendly. I think anything will be better than what I had last year as I was just using my Marcum lx7 with an open water transducer, it showed depth and water temp, but im not sure if I ever got an accurate reading when it came to fish under the boat...But this will be a great secondary unit.

[CaptainMusky]

The elites are very user friendly. Only a few buttons to push so it would be easy to figure out. Not that an HDS is hard by any means, but there are a lot of things in there that most (including me) who have used them for years dont even know what they do or how they affect things.

The great thing is there are some very good resources out there to help cut down the learning curve.

Doc Sonar is tremendous. He has DVDs and a ton of vids on youtube that you can watch. He explains what he is seeing based on screen shots from his units and how to achieve best results. Also talks about all the new features coming out like structuremap, etc.

Based on your comments the elite is pretty much a plug and ready to go unit, lower learning curve it might be better for you.

I know when I first got my HDS units I spent hours in the boat before the ice left the lakes just playing around with them. Even at that you really cannot fine tune it until you are on the water.

The biggest thing for me was selecting a color palette and then sensitivity settings/color line, etc to display in a manner that made sense to me.

You can have fish essentially laying on the bottom and in one color palette it just looks like a boulder, but you change the palette and its clear that they are fish.

[gwiff100]

thank you again and again musky. more than helpful in this area. I think I am def. going to with elite, when I upgrade to a bigger boat maybe at that point I will be able to upgrade sonars as well. now I just have to see if I can make the 7 fit behind my side counsel...lol

[gwiff100]

one last question on this topic, with lake insite do they just use the DNR maps or does anyone know how they get their maps? in most cases the dnr maps are WAY out of date.

[CaptainMusky]

If you are talking about the lake insight (I blieve it was called Nautic Insight or something) that is prebuilt into some of the lowrance units, I am not exactly sure what the source it, but I can tell you it isnt terribly accurate at least in my experience.

The Lowrance Lake Insight chips that you put in (purchase separately)are sourced from the LakeMaster data in an agreement they made at the time that LakeMaster was acquired by Johnson OUtdoors (MinnKota/Humminbird).

When you put the chip in, you go into settings and select the source so if there was a base map already on your unit it would be replaced by what is on the chip.

Granted the unit that I have that has the Nautic Insight built in is an older HDS 5 so I am sure it has improved since then, but IMO the best route to go it to purchase the chips separately.

You are going to like the size of that screen!!! Especially for having split screens with sonar and nav.

[gwiff100]

exactly the information again I was looking for (lake insite) to know they have that same info from lakemaster is huge I will def. be purchasing this card then...