Bow mount depth finders???

Hi folks,
I’d like to put a decent reasonably priced depth finder on the bow of my new boat, a Fish Hawk 1750, and am pondering many different choices. I know some folks put a flasher on front and some use a graph. What are your reasons for choosing one over the other. Also I know there are some graphs that have flasher modes built into them, seems like quite a few Lowrance finders have this feature. This would seem like a great compromise, you get both in one package. Does anyone use the flasher mode on their graph and how well does it work? Do you get good real time feedback with these and how is the target separation on them. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
Clark

I recently put the garmin 250c on my new fish hawk. Dont really matter what boat but I do like mine. Anyway, I used to use an Eagle sielent sixty flasher up front but with new boat I have a minkota built-in universal transducer. Was’nt universal enough to fit the 15 year old flasher. The 250 is fairly inexpensive and does have the sonar feature. Don’t use flasher much. Easier and more fun to watch color graph. Wade at JOLLY ANN MARINE had the best deal. Spend the extra buck on the color, ya won’t regret it. My dash unit is the garmin 188c gps and there great units. H

The X-51 by Lowrance is a pretty good unit. I have it on the bow of my boat and use it with the Minn Kota universal sonar. Extremely simple to use, visible in bright sunlight and under $200.

I had a flasher on my bow for 2 seasons but it did not suit my needs fishing the river. With my attention on boat/rod control I could not stare at the flasher to consistently identify fish in moving water. With a graph the picture is there for a while and a quick glance tells me what I went over. I ended up with a Garmin 240 but that was 2 years ago so there are more choices now. The price was reasonable and I have a very good graph up front. Works for me.

I have never used a flasher but do give my Garmin 240 a thumbs up

I use my fl-8 up front on my boat. I like it for the fact there are times, especially in the fall when it’s just like ice fishing. Jig/s show up just off the bottom, here comes a fish, wham, set the hook. If you are handy with a flasher, they are great tools. If I were going to put something different up there, it would be the eagle 480.

Clark,

If you are looking for a reasonable price graph to put on the bow, I would take a close look at the BottomLine Tournament 320 or the Tournament 480. The 320 has a large 320 pixel x 320 pixel screen, 3,200 watts of peak to peak power and a 200khz transducer, and retails for about $150. This is the unit I use on my bow and I have had great success with it. The 480 is basically the same unit as the 320 but has 480 pixels x 480 pixels and retails for about $225.

As far as using a flasher, I typically only use a flasher at the console when I am traveling at high speed (over 50mph). Flashers are still quicker than graphs, but most graphs now days are very quick. At the bow, you will typically be going slow enough where the graph will show you “real time” and you will get much more detail that is easier to read than a flasher.

Hope this helps, good luck on your purchase.