Value For Money

[Thunderace]

G’day , been a lurker for a while and will soon be getting the the father in laws boat, similar to

http://www.fishraider.com.au/Invision/index.php?showtopic=44117&st=0&p=327439&hl=fishfinder&fromsearch=1entry327439

. I’ll be fishing rivers, lakes and protected bays (ie lake Illawarra, shoalhaven river, Jervis Bay) no offshore stuff. It has no electronics at all so I’m after some advice regarding what would be the best value I can get out of the limited money that I have

I’ve got a budget of about $1000 and after doing much research I’ve come up with a couple of options

1) Northstar 538i Chartplotter $429 (Just use inbuilt mapping) or Garmin GPSMAP 450 $600

2) Lowrance Elite-5X $600 Colour 480*480 Humminbird 737X B&W 640 *320 $600 humminbird 718X B&W 320*320 $349 lowrance Mark 5X B&W 480*480 $260

(the B*W would keep me to the $1000 budget)

OR

Lowrance HDS5 colour480*480 Combo $1000 or Humminbird 788cXi colour 640*640 $1089

Obviously there is the decision between two units and a combo, but with a combo, I assume that you get a better fishfinder ???

So the question is what would be a better value for money for my kind of fishing or do you have another option. Thanks for any replies

Stuart

[bisso]

How well do you know the waterways where you fish?

if you are confident with your knowledge then you wouldnt need a chartplotter and all the fancy bits. a simple sounder would suffice.

if you are going to venture into the unknown, yes they can assist but you shouldnt rely on these as your eyes. i know a lot of car nav systems show roads that arent formed and i remember a court case where two oldies were driving purely from the nav system. if they had have been watching the road instead of the Nav system they would have seem the large dam they were about to drive in which was supposedly in the middle of a road that was never built but the Nav didnt know that. technology aint perfect and should be used as a guide only. as it turned out, they argued that the device was advertised as a car navigation guidance system and won the case even though they were idiots....

Cheers

Mick

[a boat]

Hi Stuart, if I was in your situation I would narrow it down to the Humminbird 788cx or the HDS-5 with the HB having the better screen and mounting system being my pick for what you want to do. PM me if you are wanting the Fishraider prices on these units and more info.

Cheers,

Huey.