# Humminbird VS Lowrance Fish "Hooks"



## BaddFish (Jun 20, 2009)

Guys,
This is not a bash session of one brand over the other...I've never used Lowrance in my life and Ive owned some cheap humminbirds over the years.. A good friend of mine recently put a Helix 10 & Helix 8 on his boat.. We've read the manuals and tried to dial in the settings the best we know..
My question is: Why do the Humminbirds fish hooks not even look close to the Lowrance fish hooks? (At least the ones they advertise?)

The only time we really know if there is fish at 14ft in 16ft of water is if we put the "Fish I.D." on...which gives you the little cracker looking fish icons. (I feel like this is amateur hour to do this but??)
5-6 different times as we were marking fish, they will scroll to the left and I will press the menu button and click the fish ID OFF....as soon as I do that the cracker fish icon is gone and sometimes whats left behind is....pathetic. It might be 3 dots or a tiny little blob.

If I had the fish ID off before hand- there would be NO WAY we would determine the little 3 dots or tiny blobs were even fish..
Do we have something set wrong? I've tried different transducer settings, etc..
Thanks for any help...I youtube "chirp" settings, etc.. and the screens look amazing with the hooks and everything... Ours are not showing anything close to that.
Is it possible that the fish we are picking up are really only bait fish? That 17-20" walleye will definitely show good hooks and we simply haven't been above them yet?

Thanks in advance for any help!


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## s.a.m (Feb 22, 2016)

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## K gonefishin (May 4, 2004)

Hummingbird 2d is for the birds, pun intended. Side and down imaging are great expecially mega but for traditional sonar they leave alot ot be desired. Setting are likely an issue but if you are expecting screen to look like lowrance get a lowrance.


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## BaddFish (Jun 20, 2009)

K gonefishin said:


> Hummingbird 2d is for the birds, pun intended. Side and down imaging are great expecially mega but for traditional sonar they leave alot ot be desired. Setting are likely an issue but if you are expecting screen to look like lowrance get a lowrance.


His Helix 10 has Mega down/side & chirp....I'm not impressed at all with it (I won't tell him that!)
Can you suggest something to change in the settings?


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## K gonefishin (May 4, 2004)

BaddFish said:


> His Helix 10 has Mega down/side & chirp....I'm not impressed at all with it (I won't tell him that!)
> Can you suggest something to change in the settings?


No I run lowrance.


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## crappiedude (Mar 12, 2006)

Is the boat moving when you're looking for the arch's (hooks)? Fish won't show up as an arch unless the boat is moving


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## BaddFish (Jun 20, 2009)

Yes, we are moving all different speeds.
After browsing You Tube yesterday I have some basic settings to start with...and my gut says that we simply haven't been over any good fish to provide a good hook...Yet.


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## Impact2020 (Feb 23, 2020)

I have one of each on my boat (both are older models) I will say out of the box the lowrance factory settings seem much better than the Humminbird but you can dial the Humminbird in a little better than the lowrance. I think you just aren’t seeing fish below your boat. Sounds like you are fishing shallow waters and walleye are typically boat shy. Plus running in 15’ of water your sonar cone is probably only 3 to 4’ wide at the bottom. Odds of you pinging a walleye aren’t very good, the fish you do read are most likely something else. If he has side scan I have found that to be very useful in the shallows. 
Since your buddy has 2 Units I would leave one a factory settings and play around with the other.


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