# Higher End Fish Finder Education Needed



## ducman491 (Oct 31, 2011)

So I was on a friends new boat for its maiden voyage and we put in at Neff Rd and went a bit west looking for perch. He has a Lowrance Elite 7 HDI unit at the console and an X52 at the bow. Being that he just got the boat and hasn't read the manuals for the electronics I was fiddling with both units a bit. My question is what is the difference between the 200kHz and 83kHz options? We weren't marking any fish at all at 200kHz but were seeing a few arcs in 83kHz. There wasn't any real bottom structure showing on either unit. The HDI feature wasn't showing anything at all and I actually wonder if it worked on this unit. Can you educate me a bit as I'm looking to upgrading the boat I just bought myself.


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## Salmonid (Apr 14, 2004)

ducman491 said:


> So I was on a friends new boat for its maiden voyage and we put in at Neff Rd and went a bit west looking for perch. He has a Lowrance Elite 7 HDI unit at the console and an X52 at the bow. Being that he just got the boat and hasn't read the manuals for the electronics I was fiddling with both units a bit. My question is what is the difference between the 200kHz and 83kHz options? We weren't marking any fish at all at 200kHz but were seeing a few arcs in 83kHz. There wasn't any real bottom structure showing on either unit. The HDI feature wasn't showing anything at all and I actually wonder if it worked on this unit. Can you educate me a bit as I'm looking to upgrading the boat I just bought myself.


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Assuming it was either a Lowrance or Humminbird model as those two have the market right now but Garmin is slowly catching up and their stuff looks pretty good so far.

Now as far as the 83 vs 200 Mghtz is concerned, the 83 is a general all purpose wide angle cone and is good for most lakes here in Ohio, but suppose you started fishing water deeper then 100 ft, the 200 setting a stronger narrower beam towards the bottom and would be a better option if you were on Lake Superior, at times Ill witch mine over to the 200 when Im in some 70+ft holes in th e Ohio River and it seems to help a bit,
per the Humminbird website, With 200 kHz, the bottom coverage is ~ 1/3 of the water depth.

With 83 kHz, the bottom coverage is ~ equal to the water depth.


I hope this helps, also when you tweak settings, be sure your on the specific screen you want tweaked when your adjusting, each screen is different, ( Side Imaging, Down Imaging, Sonar, etc) another key setting is Chart Speed, be sure to set it at the typical cruising speed youll be running over stuff, most set at between 3-5, where as youll be idling over structure at between 3-5 mph and youll get the best screen captures with the most detail if the Chart speed equals your idling speed


I hope this helps you a bit, also on Side imaging, most can run out to 120 ft on each side but youll get way better images if you keep that at say 60 ft. and the shallower water Im in, the lowe the side imaging distance, so if Im at Indian or St Marys where its a very shallow lake, Ill set side imaging to like 20 ft.on each side

Salmonid


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## ducman491 (Oct 31, 2011)

That's perfect! Exactly what I was looking for. These were Lowrance units but I'll be looking at Humminbird as well for my boat next year. Down imaging for the back and side imaging for the bow. 

Thanks a bunch


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## GPtimes2 (May 14, 2006)

I would recommend checking Garmin along with the other two. This years they have 1500W (3x500) transducers and the new Panoptix transducers. The panoptix shows real time imaging instead of history (as most show). This will be the future of fishing with sonar (seeing the lures, bait, and fish interact). Next year they may be on the second generation of these witch would be even better. They also have a fish-eye view with their ultra hd maps that is pretty neat. Not sure if Humminbird or Lowrance offer anything like that.


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## steelneyes2 (Jul 19, 2011)

Very likely that the settings on the units are all messed up. The HDI mode should show all sorts of structure if you go near the rock walls coming out of neff. The main lake is usually pretty quiet, relatively flat featureless bottom. Sounds like the sensitivity and colorline settings are messed up assuming the transducer is properly located and working. A thorough reading of the manuals after starting with the settings in the quick start guide should get you going. As far as purchase for your boat, ALL of the companies are putting out great technology at an affordable price right now. I have owned and operated all 4, Garmin, Lowrance, Humminbird and Raymarine. Technically, all sonar is history, it takes a tiny fraction of a second to produce the image on the screen. That amount of time is so small though that you can use a properly setup sonar to follow a fish to a jig or a perch to your rig. Everyone is using a different catch phrase for marketing purposes and the sky is the limit for pricing. CHIRP, PANOPTICS, 360 SONAR are all blended signals that can now be processed quickly enough to give you more information than you could possibly mentally process. They are all good, and the user interface (knowing what settings to adjust and when) is the most important part of any unit that you buy. A $2000 unit is no better than a $200 unit if you are using fish symbols and don't know what you are looking at. Or worse yet don't understand where the image you are looking at is oriented to the boat. I guess I'm saying beware the hype and check out all the units you can in a real environment, not on the manufacturers website or demo mode. Very few of us have school busses and shipwrecks to explore with our sonars. Most importantly, find out what you can about unit failure rates. The worst thing that happens is a unit goes down right after the warranty runs out and you get stuck with an expensive bill to repair old technology a few years from now.


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## ducman491 (Oct 31, 2011)

Thanks Steelneyes that's great information. My old boat was a 14ft fiberglass with a trolling motor that I really only used on electric only lakes and mosquito from time to time. Always near shore so my low end Humminbird really was only showing me depth and temp. The only time I had a believable fish marked was when the 3lb bass I had on my line swam under the transducer. My new boat is a 16ft aluminum with a 20hp tiller so I'm looking forward to exploring some of the bigger lakes and I've budgeted about $1000 for both fish finders next year.


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## Seaturd (Apr 14, 2004)

I leave my HDS on 200 kHZ for fishing Erie. Better definition & separation and better ability to mark fish at non-trolling speeds.


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## hupcej4x4x454 (Oct 7, 2014)

Lowrance has a nice write-up for understanding the basics of sonar/fishfinders. It's good reading and you may find it quite useful:
http://support.lowrance.com/system/...ZONE_OFFSET=&CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&ARTICLE_ID=2967

And some good info on transducers:
http://www.lowrance.com/en-US/Support/Transducers/


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## Meerkat (Aug 10, 2008)

Thanks guys! This is great info. Also Lance Valentine (walleye 101) has dvd's & classes that are well worth while & Dr. Sonar also has good Dvd's. Personally i use 200khz for running (narrow beam moving over a lot of water) & 83khz for trolling (wider beam to cover more of water column at slower speed). Hope that makes sense? 

For CHIRP 200khz = high chirp & 83khz = med chirp. On the new lowrance you can do a split screen 200/83 or (high/medium chirp). Took me a while to figure this out so hopefully it helps somebody.


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## Fishhogg1 (May 17, 2015)

Check your tranducers as well. Make sure they are level to the water not the hull. Also, make sure that they are low enough in the water as well, below the hull but not to low as to catch on debris floating in the water. Go into the menus and find the reset to factory settings and start over. I am not real familiar with those Lowrance units, I run the HDS gen 2's. The 200hz is a wider cone than the 83hz. I run my units on the 200hz for everything. If you get them set right, you should be able to mark fish to 30mph when you figure out what you are looking at. Good luck and looks like you have some good equipment to play with. Oh, if all else fails, email Lowrance support for help.


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## MassillonBuckeye (May 3, 2010)

Salmonid said:


> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> Assuming it was either a Lowrance or Humminbird model as those two have the market right now but Garmin is slowly catching up and their stuff looks pretty good so far.
> 
> ...


The lower frequencies are actually for deeper water. Heres a decent writeup on the differences/benefits etc. Ultimately I think its a matter of preference but yeah, lower frequencies travel further in water.

http://www.thetechnologicalangler.com/sonar.html


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