Electronics Rigging on a Tiller

I have old old electronics on my 1998 Warrior V177 Tiller. I have slowly been upgrading everything and now I am to the last thing…the electronics. I currently have two units, an old 5″ lowrance black and white and an old black and white global map for mapping.

I am so flippy floppy on what I want to do in regards to how many graphs and where I put them. I fish 50 percent of the time on the river and other half on lakes, and I also fish about 60-70 percent of the time trolling/rigging forward or backwards in the drivers chair and the other 30-40% fishing off the front of the boat. I chase all species all open water from April through the Winter.

I have about $1000-$1500 to spend and would ideally be buying on clearance end of year this year if I see a deal or next year. Do I get 1, 2 or 3 graphs?

I think I want two 7″ on the back (one mapping and one sonar) and in my budget I only really want DI and no need for SI. Not sure on brand either but its a plus if it can link up to my xi5, but is not really a have to have. However having a low end 5″ just sonar graph on the front of boat would be great + too.

Thoughts on the lowerance hooks? Maybe a lower end Garmin or older hummingbird unit…ha IDK

I am wandering around the woods of my brain completely lost on what to do.

Any insight, or enlightenment into current deals would be much appreciated.

Right now I am leaning towards
1) Garmin 7sv on back for Sonar (400-500 bucks)
2) Something for mapping on back, are there any good just GPS units currently being made? (400-500 bucks) Maybe Garmin EchoMap 53dv?
3) Garmin 7dv on front just for sonar (300-400 bucks)

That would hit the budget and set me up pretty good. Thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks

For mapping maybe I would just run el cheapo andriod 10″ tablet with internal gps, predownloaded navionics lake maps, and a water proof case….has anyone ever tried that

Its pretty impressive what the Garmin EchoMap units will do for the money. I would definitely be looking at them. Put a echomap 73sv and a 53dv on the back and another 53dv just for sonar on the front like you were saying.

You wouldn’t be disappointed.

If you have any slight thought of networking/linking together, make sure you think about trolling motor brand in your decision. I started with ipilot, which “forced” me to a Bird 999. I know Motor Guide and Lowrance now have similar capabilities. Personally, I don’t know how I lived without some of the features like follow the contour. They all have pros and cons, but stick with one family of products to maximize capabilities.

I do have an xi5 so I did originally lean towards a lowrance so I could gateway link it, but in my mind they offer worse sonar/DI/SI than the Garmins. Plus for similar size Garmins are about half the price.

However, I completely blew up my plan this weekend we I bought a Helix 7 DI w/ GPS. It was a month old and came with a brand new Navionics + card for 360 bucks. I bought it to just use for mapping so I should be good to go for mapping. No 10.1 tablet for me now.

I’m very much interested in replies as well. Need all new electronics for next boat.

When did Navionics become usable with birds? I thought lowrance had those rights? This would be perfect union IMO, always had birds but liked the mapping navionics offers now.

nhamm wrote:

When did Navionics become usable with birds?

I don’t know the answer to that q, but here is proof with a shot from Sunday with the Helix 7 running navionics + with sonar charts.

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