Garmin Quickdraw vs Humminbird Autochart

[txchaser]

I'm at the 'serious consideration' stage of livescope, but my situation is such that I have to make the whole thing portable, and there's no room for two units. I currently use an H-bird for making maps, SI/DI/etc. The mapping feature is pretty good. 

I'm expecting to lose and have to re-make my maps when I make the switch to a garmin (943xsv I think). But if the garmin user-made maps are junky it'd be a tough switch to make.

Anyone have experience with Quickdraw or whatver the GPSmap series calls it? 

[12poundbass]

I have two Echomap Plus units. The maps on the lakes I fish are surprisingly pretty good. The reason I say surprisingly is because they are tiny lakes. We’re talking less than 150 acres. The bigger lakes around here appear to have good maps as well. I lived on a private lake for a couple years and mapped that one, and QuickDraw was super simple to use. Turn it on and go fish and forget it. 

[txchaser]

15 hours ago, 12poundbass said:

QuickDraw was super simple to use. Turn it on and go fish and forget it. 

Thanks! Sounds very similar.

[casts_by_fly]

Any reason why you wouldn't just get MegaLive instead?  I find the Humminbird imaging for side and down to be best in class and wouldn't want to give that up.

[txchaser]

On 11/29/2022 at 10:42 AM, casts_by_fly said:

Any reason why you wouldn't just get MegaLive instead?  I find the Humminbird imaging for side and down to be best in class and wouldn't want to give that up.

Yeah I don't want to give that up either, but think I'm willing to trade it to get the + version of livescope. It seems dramatically better than anything that came before it. I think part of the trade is how many big fish I haven't caught because I could see a detail on the DI/SI. Certainly get more fish from having it, but they seem pretty obvious when I see them. Kind of related I'm on a 7" now and it's a little too small - it's only a few feet from my face so I don't need a 12", but I'd need to upgrade to an 8 or 9 anyway so it's a complete do-over either way.

 

While I have you - I notice my DI and 2d disagree all the time about whether there's a fish there, and it continues to do it even with sensitivity changes. Sometimes it's the DI showing what look like the usual blobs, and nothing on the 2d, and sometimes arches on the 2d and nothing at all on the DI. Have I lost my mind? If not, what am I seeing or not seeing when it does this? 

 

[Tennessee Boy]

8 hours ago, txchaser said:

While I have you - I notice my DI and 2d disagree all the time about whether there's a fish there, and it continues to do it even with sensitivity changes. Sometimes it's the DI showing what look like the usual blobs, and nothing on the 2d, and sometimes arches on the 2d and nothing at all on the DI. Have I lost my mind? If not, what am I seeing or not seeing when it does this? 

 

It’s important to understand and constantly keep in mind the shape and width of the sonar beam of each sonar type.  It depends on what transducer you have and your settings but the DI beam is almost always wider than 2D so it will show fish that 2D will not show.  Seeing fish on 2D that are not on DI is a little more unusual.  The 2D beam is cone shaped so it covers more area.  If you’re not moving or moving slowly a fish could swim through the 2D beam but not the DI beam.  Fish can also be hidden in the brighter bottom echos in different ways on DI and 2D due to the different beam shapes.

[casts_by_fly]

11 hours ago, txchaser said:

Yeah I don't want to give that up either, but think I'm willing to trade it to get the + version of livescope. It seems dramatically better than anything that came before it. I think part of the trade is how many big fish I haven't caught because I could see a detail on the DI/SI. Certainly get more fish from having it, but they seem pretty obvious when I see them. Kind of related I'm on a 7" now and it's a little too small - it's only a few feet from my face so I don't need a 12", but I'd need to upgrade to an 8 or 9 anyway so it's a complete do-over either way.

 

If you have a 7" then you need to upgrade anyway to use megalive as I don't think there is a 7" helix compatible with megalive (not to mention the size).  I'm in the same boat as I have a helix 7 G3.  I want 360, but it means a head unit upgrade plus the 360 transducer or about $2500 in spend (less whatever I'd get selling my helix7, probably $200 or so).  In that case if you're set on a live unit of some type you're basically starting from scratch again.

 

 

11 hours ago, txchaser said:

While I have you - I notice my DI and 2d disagree all the time about whether there's a fish there, and it continues to do it even with sensitivity changes. Sometimes it's the DI showing what look like the usual blobs, and nothing on the 2d, and sometimes arches on the 2d and nothing at all on the DI. Have I lost my mind? If not, what am I seeing or not seeing when it does this? 

 

 

I've seen the same.  I'm not as good at reading the blobs on DI so I mostly use it for bottom and cover.  When I am actively scanning something I found on SI, I will split screen 3 ways with navi for the waypoints and DI/2D for visuals.  Then I can look at both together to compare and not worry if one is showing something that the other isnt.  I think depth plays a role too, especially below 25' or so.  I've had occasions when crossing a big lake I can see the fish in 2D suspended (usually trout and lake trout in a lot of places) but swapping to DI is a blank screen.  What TeneseeBoy said above is probably in play there with the wider beam on DI not having the same return power as 2D.  Swapping from Mega frequency to 800 or 400 kHz returns more, but since that isn't where I'm using DI (I don't care about deeper than 25' since I won't be fishing it) I'm not messing with it.

 

[Tennessee Boy]

This graphic shows what I’m talking about.   If the red dot is a fish it would show up in DI but not 2D because it is outside of the 2D cone.

[txchaser]

On 12/1/2022 at 7:13 AM, Tennessee Boy said:

It’s important to understand and constantly keep in mind the shape and width of the sonar beam of each sonar type.  It depends on what transducer you have and your settings but the DI beam is almost always wider than 2D so it will show fish that 2D will not show.  Seeing fish on 2D that are not on DI is a little more unusual.  The 2D beam is cone shaped so it covers more area.  If you’re not moving or moving slowly a fish could swim through the 2D beam but not the DI beam.  Fish can also be hidden in the brighter bottom echos in different ways on DI and 2D due to the different beam shapes.

 

On 12/1/2022 at 10:00 AM, Tennessee Boy said:

This graphic shows what I’m talking about.   If the red dot is a fish it would show up in DI but not 2D because it is outside of the 2D cone.

Ah this is super helpful... I thought the 2d also had a multi-frequency wide cone. Gonna have to dig up the manual.

I'm going to watch closely and see when I notice either one happening. It might be when I'm drifting vs under power that I see DI blob with no SI.

 

On 12/1/2022 at 9:47 AM, casts_by_fly said:

If you have a 7" then you need to upgrade anyway to use megalive as I don't think there is a 7" helix compatible with megalive (not to mention the size).  I'm in the same boat as I have a helix 7 G3.  I want 360, but it means a head unit upgrade plus the 360 transducer or about $2500 in spend (less whatever I'd get selling my helix7, probably $200 or so).  In that case if you're set on a live unit of some type you're basically starting from scratch again.

Yeah that's pushing me to just get the garmin unfortunately. There's also no speed-keys on the 7" which means view switching is a bit tedious unless the views are together, and on that size screen flipping between the 2d+DI and the SI is often useful.

 

On 12/1/2022 at 9:47 AM, casts_by_fly said:

Swapping from Mega frequency

Ah I keep it on mega all the time. But I'm not usually scanning more than 50' out unless it's pretty deep. Something for me to think about anyway.

 

While we are on the topic I saw something recently that was interesting - looked like a thermocline, but was showing on the DI and SI. Down around that depth too. Basically everything under about 20' looked like it had junk in it. Water temps mid-50's. Fall turnover maybe?

[12poundbass]

5 hours ago, txchaser said:

I thought the 2d also had a multi-frequency wide cone. Gonna have to dig up the manual.

That would be CHIRP

 

5 hours ago, txchaser said:

Ah I keep it on mega all the time. But I'm not usually scanning more than 50' out unless it's pretty deep. Something for me to think about anyway.

I keep mine about 50-60’ out each side. The wider you go the less detail you’ll have. 
 

6 hours ago, txchaser said:

While we are on the topic I saw something recently that was interesting - looked like a thermocline, but was showing on the DI and SI. Down around that depth too. Basically everything under about 20' looked like it had junk in it. Water temps mid-50's. Fall turnover maybe?

That sounds like what you’re seeing.