What do I buy: Lowrance/Furuno or anything else

[Hydroman]

Hi guys....I am relatively new to this forum and I am hoping I can get some guidance on what fish finder to purchase.

I currently have a panel mount 5" fish finder which is starting to play up a bit. I am not concerned with this other than I now have a hole in the dash with not a lot of extra real-estate available to fit anything bigger.

My desire however, is to purchase 2 units, one as a dedicated fish finder and the other (the dash mount 5") as a chart plotter. The second unit being the fish finder I will month on top of the dash so no issues with space. Ideally I want to have these linked so if I mark a point on the "fish finder"it will mark a point on the plotter. This is ideal but if not achievable, no issues.

So my question is, what do I buy? I was looking at the Lowrance units at the show this year which looked nice. Are Furuno the bees knees of finders at the moment?

A second question is the relative usefulness of Down Imaging and Side Imaging. I dont have this at the moment so is this worthwhile? 99% of the time I fish PPB so what should I be looking for in my next sounder.

Any advise given will be greatly received,

Thanks.

[cobby]

Dedicated sounder for mostly ppb, hands down Furuno.

And that's coming from someone who doesn't even own one

[yepi'mon]

I just did a snapper tuition session with Matt Cini from real time charters and he swears by Furono and that you won't get a more accurate picture from any other sounder.

[Wolly Bugger]

I just did a snapper tuition session with Matt Cini from real time charters and he swears by Furono and that you won't get a more accurate picture from any other sounder.

I think you will find that the majority of charter operators use Furono as their sounder, but apparently it is not as good as others for gps.

[yepi'mon]

I just did a snapper tuition session with Matt Cini from real time charters and he swears by Furono and that you won't get a more accurate picture from any other sounder.

I think you will find that the majority of charter operators use Furono as their sounder, but apparently it is not as good as others for gps.

Should have provided more detail - that is spot on, Furono was for sounders only. I can't remember what he used as a GPS... might have been simrad...

[yepi'mon]

In fact he had just installed the latest top of the line Furuno navigation but chose not to use it as he didn't rate it -

[Wolly Bugger]

I have two lowarance sonar/gps units, one is an Elite 7 Hdi, and the other is Elite 5 Chirp. I am using the 5 as my GPS unit and the 7 as my sounder with split screen.

The plan is to sell the 7 and buy a Furono.

[frozenpod]

Furuno have been the best salt water sounder in the market for 20 plus years.

Recently there are several other brands which are producing top quality sounders, chirp technology is certainly worth looking into.

Furuno GPS units are ok but the maps are stupidly expensive.

[Hydroman]

Thanks everyone for your responses. I was hoping to get 2 units (one as a chartplotter and the other as a sounder) of the same brand so comms between the 2 in "theory"should be easy. It looks like this may be a wee bit difficult.

I am going to check out the Furuno units considering the glowing reports everyone is giving them.

Wolly: may I ask why you are considering moving away from the Lowrance units? The reason why I ask is I looked at them at the show this year and they looked nice enough and the 5" would fit into my hole quite nicely for a chartplotter and was thinking of going down this path. I dont normally procrastinate, I just have not given this a second thought until now and today the dam thing played up again so I am getting sick of having to reboot the current sounder so need to fix this sooner rather than later.

Frozen: nice to see you again mate. I only found this place recently when I was having withdraw symptoms not having a fishing site to post on anymore.

Once again, thank you everyone for their replies....the information is greatly appreciated.

[ducky]

Garmin currently leading combos.

Furuno leading as a standalone traditional sounder.

However if I was in the market for a standalone sounder with all the fruit Id be looking at the garmin striker 7sv.