Recomended Fish Finder For Under 1,000 USD

Started by Marko, November 01, 2013, 10:12:17 AM

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Marko

Dear Friends,

please recommend me for a good performance fish finder that it's price is below 1,000,- USD.

the fishing dept would be 120 ft - 650 ft. 

currently i'm using Garmin 421S - but i'm not satisfied.

Hope You Guys can give me a good recommendation.

Many Thanks- Tight Lines

Marko Zakaria

joel8080

Marko

I just bought a Si-Tex SVS-650 for my boat I haven't installed it yet but I was on a friends boat that had a SVS-650 installed and I was very impressed by the unit I have always like Si- Tex, there not that popular with the fishing community but in the Sailing Community ( who are the best Navigators in Boating) Si_Tex is very popular, I have there 11 inch GPS on my boat and I love it who every has seen it raves about the GPS. The boat had a Garman fishfinder when I first bought the boat got rid of it, Then Raymarine liked the unit but to many repair problems and the Agent in here in Panama is a Horses ####.
I will not install the unit till I get to the States as we are moving back to California and I will install it then. They have many differant transducers for the unit I have a Blackfin boat which is a deep vee hull so I bought a 20 Degree bronze thru  hull to work with the deep vee.

Hope this helps you it's not easy but check out the feed back on differant units and then pull the trigger.

Lots of luck

Joel8080
Oceanside,California

conchydong


I'd find a used Furuno 582 (around $300-$400 used) and get a very good transducer. If you can find a 1000w Airmar transducer within the remainder of your budget that would be great, if not, the 600w would be adequate for your depths. That would give you the best bang for the buck although it wouldn't be "new".

Bryan Young

Furuno or Garmin would be my choice with Furuno first.

:D I talk with every part I send out and each reel I repair so that they perform at the top of their game. :D

raumati01


broadway

I also have the Furuno 585 and I'm a huge fan of Garmin but Furuno has them in the fish finder category.
GPS/chartplotters, Garmin's got this one.
Good luck to ya, but keep it simple unless you wanna refer to the manual 10 times a day.
Dom

locknut

#6
I second that had my Furuno FC-585 for 3-4 years and it is a great sounder.





Above water



Below water

Tightlines667

#7
Furano, Sitex, then garmin.  Stay away from Lawrence(for saltwater applications), Raytheon, and hummingbird.  Power output, and transducer power, freq, and cone width are more important then screen resolution, color and user interface.  Depends what you need the unit for... Simple depth, bath contours, defining bottom structure nuances, marking individual small targets w/ good separation near the bottom, mid level, near surface, or picking up thermoclines, SSLs etc.  Basically you get what you pay for.  Do some research (there are some good online reviews and unbiased test results avail online).   The most impressive system I have ever used was a high-end, extremely powerful Furano unit coupled to duel through hull transducers, and a bath ploting/charting software suite that continuously updated/created high resolution 3D charts, and was capable of saving sections of track complete w/targets.  This was a multi thousand dollar system, and not likely to be feasable for most people though.  In general, if you want to see bottom over 150ft you need a >0.5kw unit, >1kw peak to peak gets you down to over 500ft, 1.5kw can see bottom at 1000ft if tuned properly.  And marking targets effectively usually occurs at depths 1/2 to 2/3 of where it can see bottom at max, though this is highly dependent on the type (cone angle) and quality of your properly mounted transducer.  Narrow angle cones see deeper but have poor target seperation, ESP at shallow depths.  Wide angle transducers are better at this but also have a 'sweet spot' depth range where they perform best at.  You also need to learn to use the manual adjustment settings on your unit to get the most outta it.  Understand that many units will often show false targets and false noise.  For good quality, cost effective, user friendly fish and bottom finding in near shore coastal areas, a good higher end garmin w/ a decent transducer is prob your best bet.  A used high power SITEX w/ a new powerful transducer would be the next step up.  High end powerful Furanos are best for deep/open water applications... Just my opinion :)

I agree with the above...

Furuno 585 w/an airmar transducer would prob be best for your needs/budget.
Hope springs eternal
for the consumate fishermen.

Jerseymic

Hi Guys,

I have no experience with fish finders but this has been getting good reviews here in the U.K.

http://www.raymarine.co.uk/view/?id=6854#.UqF57LCYa2w

Mike.

Marko

got it... You can't go wrong with furuno ;D

but could anyone post the difference for garmin 421s using standar transducer and the 1KW transducer? any difference in the display?

thanks