Upgrading electronics to tournament fish

[gaddy205]

Looking to upgrade my 17.5 foot princecraft's electronics to be able to find fish in a tournament or even on the weekends effectively. Trying to stay around $400. Any advice helps 

[Wayne P.]

1 hour ago, gaddy205 said:

Looking to upgrade my 17.5 foot princecraft's electronics to be able to find fish in a tournament or even on the weekends effectively. Trying to stay around $400. Any advice helps 

What do you have now?

[gaddy205]

On September 20, 2016 at 9:19 PM, Wayne P. said:

What do you have now?

I'm not exactly sure what brand. It's the one that came with the boat. It marks fish but it's just not very reliable in IMO

[J Francho]

I fished tournaments with old monochrome Lowrance units and did fine.  It's not the graph that wins the tournament.

[riverbasser]

I really like the hummingbird helix series. Should be able to get the helix 5 SI GPS combo for around that price

[gulfcaptain]

34 minutes ago, J Francho said:

I fished tournaments with old monochrome Lowrance units and did fine.  It's not the graph that wins the tournament.

I agree with this.  There's a lot more to finding fish then looking at a graph.  Knowing where to look and seasonal patterns come into play as well.  But for what price range you're looking at I'd say spend a little more and get a Lowrance Hook 5 with Navigation (although now you look into getting Navionics chips which are around $200 but well worth the investment) but then if you're wanting side imaging as well then you're going to spend even more on a Elite TI but with a 5" screen it's going to be hard to see with a split screen and if it were me, I'd spend more on a 7" model which will accept a Navionics chip.  The chart plotter is just as valuable as the graph.  And detailed chart plotters WILL improve your ability to locate fish on structure since you can survey the body of water prior to fishing and give you a good starting point.  My graph didn't help me in a club tournament find fish, but the chart plotter played a HUGE role in locating structure and contours that held the quality fish I needed. 

[Scott F]

If you get a Garmin, you can save $200 on a map chip because the Garmin's come with high def maps built in plus the software to create high def maps for any lake that is not one of the 17,000 maps that came with the unit. Right now, Cabelas has the 53dv, a $400 unit on sale for $279.

[bholtzinger14]

I know NOTHING about fish finders, but this seems like a pretty good deal.

http://www.gandermountain.com/modperl/product/details.cgi?pdesc=Lowrance-HDS-9-Gen2-Touch-Fishfinder/Chartplotter-Insight-USA-83/200-kHz&i=705704

 

I know its waaay over your budget, but dang.

[gaddy205]

1 hour ago, bholtzinger14 said:

I know NOTHING about fish finders, but this seems like a pretty good deal.

http://www.gandermountain.com/modperl/product/details.cgi?pdesc=Lowrance-HDS-9-Gen2-Touch-Fishfinder/Chartplotter-Insight-USA-83/200-kHz&i=705704

 

I know its waaay over your budget, but dang.

That's a dang good deal but man $1,000 is a lot of money. Lol

[gim]

How about this one?  It has GPS, color sonar, and down scan.  Comes with a free cover too.

http://www.gandermountain.com/modperl/product/details.cgi?pdesc=Lowrance-Elite-5-HDI-Fishfinder/Chartplotter-With-Suncover&i=922116&r=view&cvsfa=2586&cvsfe=2&cvsfhu=393232313136&s_kwcid=adwords__&gclid=CNzoupakrs8CFQUFaQodQikJ4g

[pawpaw]

My brother in law just bought a Humminbird Helix 5 DI / GPS Combo with Navionics  $396.60 w/ free shipping from Universal mania this week.

https://www.universalmania.com/collections/humminbird-fishfinder/products/humminbird-helix-5-di-gps-combo-with-navionics-chart

That should get you started.