Garmin striker 7.

[Steve2517]

Does anyone have screen shots of sv with this unit.    Especially in 5ft of water or so.   Interested to see how the sv performs compared to hummingbird units.   Garmin seems to deff have the edge in Dv vs hummingbird.   But is hummingbird still king of si ?   Looking at the striker 7sv vs 898ci si hd.   Still unsure of what to get.   Don't care about the mapping really.   Thanks for any help. 

[Bassman37]

I have been waiting for the Garmin Striker 7 side view to arrive in local stores so that I can play around with it and get an idea of its capabilities as well. I too have been considering the 7 inch Humminbird models but the Garmin price of $500 is about $200 less so I am interested in comparing the graphics.

I just today received my Bass Pro Shops circular that included the Garmin Striker at list price. I called my local store to verify availability and I plan to visit them next week. Cabela's tells me they have no idea as to when they will receive stock on it.

[Steve2517]

Well guess I can't order it out of cabelas magazine I have.   Lol.    I'd love to know how it compares to hummingbird side imaging.    Again the screenshots I've seen from Wayne screenshots on the hummingbird units in under 6 feet of water are just amazing.  Would be great to know if garmin remotely compares to that.   Wonder if the garmin unit comes with a tranducer that is like the hd humminbird one.   

[Comfortably Numb]

Garmin Di is known to be pretty disappointing. Si is decent.

HB shallow si is very good.

My Raymarine has a shallow mode Si that is very good but much more expensive then what you are looking at.

[Steve2517]

So I am right in assuming that hummingbird si vs garmin sv isn't close.   ?     

[Bassman37]

I'll post my thoughts after I compare them both next week at Bass Pro Shop.

[Scarboni07]

I just purchased the Garmin echomap Chirp 73 SV 2 days ago, but won't be able to put it on the boat and play with it until 2 weeks from now.  I almost went with the striker 7SV, however i liked the GPS/Maps on the echo.  Plus I work at Garmin, so the price tag was a little cheaper.  

Keep us updated on how the Striker is with the SV imaging and I will update you all once I get the echomap on the boat. 

[Bassman37]

Well I took a run out to BPS today to spend some time with the Garmin Striker 7 GPS/sv because as I stated earlier I had called and they said that they were in stock. It ended up that they had a whole two in stock and none on display and according to the department head they must have at least five in stock to put one on display.

So bottom line I am still in a holding pattern as I really want to try this thing out a bit before parting with $500.

[Steve2517]

Yes deff know the feeling.   Wondering if tranducer is good quality that they give you with striker.  Prob not as good as hummingbird hd tranducer ? 

[Bassman37]

Yeah, unless I can find a Striker 7 sv to check out in the next two weeks I may end up buying the Humminbird Helix 7 GPS/si combo. I did spend a bit of time looking at one at Cabela's a few weeks ago and it seems to be a quality unit but the thing that was leading me to Garmin was availability of their chirp technology.

I wonder if it really is any better than than Humminbird?

[AEWblackeagle8]

I have played with the Striker 7 at Cabelas and it looks great the display is crystal clear. Has anyone used it on the water is my question? I fish mostly on a Wilderness Systems Atak and  really don't care about the maps very much because most of the small lakes don't have maps anyway. I have also looked at the humminbird helix 5 si and it looks ok but for the same price, I can get a 7" screen with basically the same features. 

The other until I looked at was the Lowrance Elite 7 TI, it is expensive but it basically is a tablet. It can do a lot of stuff that not many other units can, but to me, the display looks like crap as far as the 2d, down scan and Side. 

Any advice would be helpful. Thanks 

[sprintfns]

Ordered mine from BPS 2 wks ago. Go it last week.Mounted it and took it out to a city lake close by. Screen displays are great. My transducer is not perfectly level so the sv trend is off somewhat. I've adjusted it and plan to take it back to the lake tomorrow. So, so far I really like the traditional and dv. I'll report on the sv later.

 

[Bassman37]

Your comments on the clarity are great to hear!

I'll be very interested in your assessment of the side view also.

Thanks.

[AEWblackeagle8]

That's awesome please keep us in the loop. I am so close to pulling the trigger on the striker 7sv 

[sprintfns]

Well I adjusted the transducer to make it more level. Seems to helped some. This is my first experience with dv and sv sounders to I'm going through a learning experience. I very much like the traditional view. I am starting to tell where the fish are now. It's definitely a trial and error learning experience. Had to play around with contrast and gain to get the best indication of fish, structure, etc. I'm still working with the settings on dv and sv. I can see the structure on dv and sv but am having problems picking up fish indications, especially on sv.  I'll continue to adjust the settings to see if I can improve get a better indication of the fish. Sure hope so after spending $500. I'll keep you informed.

[Bassman37]

Just like any new electronics item I'm sure that it will take time to understand all the settings and variances. It sure sounds like it should be a winner!

[AEWblackeagle8]

How does the way point marking work on the water. Is it good or something that is just kind of there? 

[Megastink]

I had a Humminbird 798 HD with sidescan last year and sold it for a Garmin 73sv. I had it out on my shallow lunker factory last weekend and was much more impressed with the Garmin. The deepest water in the lake is 6', and 4.5' is the average. I could see individual clumps of grass and weed lines, it was wonderful. I didn't try 2D or DV yet; waiting to get on some deeper water for that.

[Bassman37]

Glad to see your positive comments on the Garmin side view. Interesting to hear that the clarity is that defined at shallow depths.

[Wayne P.]

8 hours ago, Megastink said:

I had a Humminbird 798 HD with sidescan last year and sold it for a Garmin 73sv. I had it out on my shallow lunker factory last weekend and was much more impressed with the Garmin. The deepest water in the lake is 6', and 4.5' is the average. I could see individual clumps of grass and weed lines, it was wonderful. I didn't try 2D or DV yet; waiting to get on some deeper water for that.

Post some shallow water screen shots with SideVu. I like to see "wonderful"

[Bassman37]

I finally decided to go ahead with the Garmin Echomap 73 SV Combo versus the Garmin Striker 7 SV based on the included maps and the free Quickdraw Contours self mapping of any lake or pond. I also liked the idea of having a Micro SD slot for future updates which the Striker does not have.

Picked it up at BPS for $550 as it is being replaced by the same chirp model at $850. Thanks to the prior comments from Wayne P regarding him not seeing much difference between his chirp and non-chirp models I felt that it was money well spent for my needs.

[sprintfns]

Update on Garmin Striker 7 sv. I've been trying to use the sv more often to learn how to interpret what I'm seeing. After adjusting the mounting, getting it more level, the signal is better, seems normal now.  After playing around with the gain, I'm starting to see indications of what seems like fish. They appear as faint cloud images, not white dots as other unit show. The structure images are great. It helps alot to reduce the sv range to about 40 ft which helps structure and fish show up much clearer. I'll keep working with it to see if the cloud images are actually fish by going back over the area with the traditional view. It's so hard for me to take the time to learn this as I'm so focused on fishing. Sure that true for most of us. Going to go tomorrow and Friday so I'll report results afterwards.  

[Bassman37]

Thanks for sharing...looking forward to your next update.