[Fishing Man]

hey guys,

im pretty desperate to get a sounder on the yak and have pretty much narrowed it down to these two models.

eagle 168
or
navman 4430

what suggestions do you guys have on this

 

[dooyor]

i don't think much of those two save up and buy a better sounder or use a string mark it every foot and tye a sinker on the end it will be as good as those two and wil not cost you

 

[Fishing Man]

are you serious??

what sort of thing would you suggest?,
model wise and ideas on price

 

[Fishing Man]

any more tips here guys,

if not, then what sounders are you using? and how have you found them
any tips or info is appreciated

 

[bazzoo]

Ben , Red seems pretty happy with his sounder, why not check with him , i believe its an entry level sounder and i am sure he dosent expect it to do magic tricks , but theres a guy that has the goods on these electronic type things

 

[andybear]

Hi FishingMan,

Im sure that you will find the entry level sounders quite satisfactory. All show the depth and structure, and give a good enough idea of any stuff in the water column (that may be fish).

As far as I can make out, spending more money gives you broader and better returns, bigger and better displays, but cheaper gets you all you need. Your research has nominated two sounders so far, and eagle (as I understand, but have no evidence) is a better known make in the guise of a cheaper case.

My advice, is get out and Buy Buy Buy! Most people however are too smart to take my advice. Good luck :lol:

Cheers Andybear :lol:

 

[Guest]

Ben

I see you're a keen bass fisherman.

My advice would be to spend more bucks on a sounder that is going to give you more screen definition. The entry level units are very blocky.

More definition equals more pixels

http://www.akff.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4296

As Occy said check this thread out.

I'm buying shortly, I will be getting something with at least 240 x 160 pixels at a minimum.

Cheers

 

[troppo]

Wonder if we, as a cooperative forum, could get some discounts if we all bought our sounders from one store or something? Anyone for organising a bit of corporate negotiating muscle?

 

[Fishing Man]

hey sel,

thanks for the tips,
do you think that the extra hundred odd dollars spent on the X50 would be worth it in comparison with the eagle 168??

i see they are both 4 greyscale but the lowrance has more pixels.
Most of my fishing will be done in impoundments chasing bass etc so i dont know if i need`too much detail, I would also like to get onto the close reefs around se qld to chase pelagics and reefies.

whats the best price you have seen the lowrance for? and do you know where I can get a look at one of these?

thanks mate

any other tips are welcome guys

 

[Fishing Man]

hey troppo,

sounds like a good idea,
would anyone else be interested in getting say a lowrance x50?

im keen to do so in the next week.

 

[Guest]

do you think that the extra hundred odd dollars spent on the X50 would be worth it in comparison with the eagle 168??

whats the best price you have seen the lowrance for? and do you know where I can get a look at one of these?

Yes Ben well worth the dollars.

Whitworths and Bias boating stock these common brands that we are comparing, I'm on both of these store's mailing list and have had a mail order catalogue posted to me this month.

At Bias the X50DS $269.00

You living on the coast would also have upteen dozen marine shops to compare prices.

I personally will be buying the Lowrance as I've had two lowrances so far and they're been easy to use and have been trouble free.

Cheers

 

[RedPhoenix]

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

----

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[Jesse_Ape]

I have the Navman 4430,

Works a charm, All you need to know is depth, temp and show a plot so you know wheather or not you just went over a drop off.

Do you really need an extra 50 pixales? I would rather the extra money in my pocket and get a GPS so you can find the drop off again. All grey scales are the much the same IMHO, If you want tec, get a colour and then you can get some real deffinition but in reality what do you need your sounder for? You need it for finding a drop off or gutter in less than 25m of water. Do you need an top of the line sounder designed to find fish in 100m of water?

I got a cheap sounder and a sweet GPS of EBay. GPS's are sweet escpecially if navigating in the ocean or in the dark. Ever tried paddleing and looking at the Sounder trust me you won't notice that you are missing 50 pixtels

my 2 cents

Jesse

 

[wongus]

Hi Ben

I have the Lowrance X50DS fitted to my Swing which I bought from BCF at Labrador for $260 (haggled) back in July this year.

I had a few problems getting the transducer to work but it seems to have sorted itself now. Could be the goop I used initially (Selley's aquarium silicone) but ended up going with Sikaflex. The transducer is not a flat puck shape but rather a skimmer type designed for less bubbles when fitted to the back of a stinkboat.

Have yet to see any definitive fish arches like those shown on the simulation mode.

Also I'm wondering about the use of the dual frequency... The manual suggested that the higher frequency 200kHz was more suitable for shallow water which is where I do most of my fishing. In the end I think it's a bit gimmiky.

For what's it's worth here's the link
http://www.lowrance.com.au/home/sonar/x50_ds

The X52 is probably a better unit in my opinion but probably hard to justify the extra $$$.

On the plus side the X50DS is easy to use and quite a neat unit with a small mounting footprint The X52 has quite a long wide base (Sel used to own the X52).

In my opinion you're probably better off getting a higher model Eagle which are essentially made by Lowrance anyway (similar to what Dodge has)

Important part is to tell depth and contour.. I don't think you will see accurate fish symbols unless you pay the $$$.

 

[Hagar]

Gday Ben,I have a cheapy Cuda 128,it tells me depth and gives a good picture of whats below,thats all I really need.Im usually too busy to be playing with all the other functions.I have quite a good Humming Bird on the tinnie (duel trans ,temp speed etc)but usually just check depth and for stucture etc.I got the Cuda real cheap at A mart,last Christmas $128,from memory,I guess it comes down to what you expect for the money. cheers Gary

 

[Fishing Man]

also Jesse, how has yours handled water getting on it,
is it able to get a dunking every so often

 

[milansek]

hay fm a sounder are your eyes on the water get the best you can save up if you have to even if it takes 4 weeks longer to get and if you can go colour. do it once do it right. milan

 

[Guest]

Hey Ben

I got your PM mate, but thought I might as well post a reply to you here.

I have three sounders, each with different resolution ranging from an Eagle 168 through to a Eagle Tri-Finder2 which has the same resolution (and probably the same screen) as the Lowrance X50 DS which others have mentioned here.

For me mate, its a no brainer, the higher res screen is the way to go, and for the sake of maybe an extra $50-$100 its definately worth the little bit extra.

The low res screen is good for finding depth, but the detail you gain from the higher res, and more powerful transducer is invaluable when targeting fish, that you probably otherwise wont even see with the entry level models.

Good luck with the decision making mate

 

[Fishing Man]

thanks for the tips Dallas,
how much did you pay for the eagle tri find?

would you say the eagle 168 isnt really worth looking at for the sake of $100 more you can get the lowrance x50s?

 

[Guest]

thanks for the tips Dallas,
how much did you pay for the eagle tri find?

would you say the eagle 168 isnt really worth looking at for the sake of $100 more you can get the lowrance x50s?

Hey Ben,

Wouldnt worry about the TriFinder2......around $500, but picked it up for $430 on sale, but I'm not convinced how useful the extra beams really are. Good in theory but not sure I would choose it again even if it was suited for a kayak other than the Prowler Elite.

It was bought especially for the Prowler Elite, and worked fine on this yak (mounted on the transducer scupper area with a custom bracket) the one time I used it before the yak went back, but I cant mount it on any other kayak due to the extra large and curved transducer. This sounder is currently mounted to my electric motor and used on the cartopper tinny now.

For the sake of $100 I'd be going for the Lowrance X50 DS for sure......good resolution, dual range transducer with good power output......but still nice and compact for your yak