Depth finders position in boat and quality

Where on your boat do you want the best quality electronics?

In a wheel boat I have two fishing areas bow,
stern for trolling, helm for searching and some times forward trolling. In a perfect world it would be great to put the best in all three places. But it isn`t possible.

So what position do I want to spend the majority for the best electronics? And being that I am getting older it`s not an option any more to read the depth finder GPS off the dash from the rear trolling station.

Moving units around from spot to spot is not what I want to do.

Thanks
Tom

We’ll as I see it and have my boat set-up, the biggest nicest one goes on the dash. I run a Lowerance 111 on the Dash and you can clearly see if from any point of the dash and back, works great for the guy fishing the on rear platform. I run my smaller unit up front (lowrance 337).

I find this works good for me for several reasons, first off most of the time I spend really looking and watch the graph, I’m going to be in the driver’s seat, watching depth and or for fish, I also like that I have a nice big display for my lakemap chips. It’s easier for me to read quickly because of it’s size, and that comes in handy when you are driving on plane, I don’t want to be looking down trying to read something, I want to glance down and get the info I need, and get my eyes back up where they should be.

Secondly I don’t find I really need to moniter the bow unit as close, mostly I’m watching depth, I’m usually in the spot I want to be at that point, depth is more of a judgement that I’m staying where I want or need to be, and I’m never moving more than a couple MPH at any given time up there so size doesn’t have much benefit. I always have plenty of time to look a bit closer if I need to.

I also find RAM mounts to be very helpful, it’ll let me adjust the unit better to the light conditions, you can move it enough to get it out of the sun a lot better, it also lifts up my units so they are close to me, so my 337 on the bow sits up a good 6 inches high than if it were flush mounted, again much easier to read. I also run the big ball RAM mount on both units, so if it ever was an issue, I always have the option of swapping a unit. Though I’ll agree it is a PITA.

Put a big one on the dash, and I don’t think you need three, wiring would be much easier, and less transducers (unless you ran a switch) but it’ll probably cost you the same if not more. Cost wise, it’s cheapist to move the units around. You’ll need a second set of wires and either another transducer or a switch.

Couple options
You could buy GPS units that cost less $ to have one in each place. Garmin 168 with the internal antena is a nice little unit without breaking the bank.

You could buy one of the big screen units Lowrance LCX112 or something similar for the dash and set it so the numbers are big so you can read them from the back of the boat then put a less expensive GPS on the bow.

From my personal experience….you will definitely want a GPS on the bow for running the trolling motor. If you are lindy rigging or jigging walleyes you want to keep a constant eye on your speed so when you find the magic # you can stay at that speed. When I got my boat it didn’t have GPS on the bow….1 year of that was too much and I put one up there.

Most of the decent units have a feature allowing you to make the numbers large and easy to read from the back of the boat to the dash so a larger screen GPS on the dash and a smaller less expensive unit on the bow should give you what you need.
JB

With the screen size that Lowrance makes now its easy to have 1 sonar/gps on the counsole to satisfy all your needs! The new X-112, X-113HD are 10.4 inch screens that can be easily pivoted with the assistance of Ram mounts to be seen anywhere in your boat!!
When your up front using your bow mount you can turn the “big screen” so it faces you. Allowing you to use the sonar/gps just as you would when your driving your boat!
Now if your using a kicker motor to do your trolling its also easy to see the larger screen model from the back of your boat as well!
The larger screen models are versital because they can be seen from anywhere in your boat!
I use this set up and it works well, the one thing I did do this past summer was add an additional internal gps model to which I can move from the front of the boat to the back of the boat depending on where I am fishing, which allows me to use the X-104c (10.4″ screen also) as a sonar only!
With the right ram mount it makes pivoting these large screens very easy!

Check out these larger screens at Jolly Ann Marine

Good info/opinions guys. I have been debating this same issue. Sherm.

What I did is I put a Lowrance 111 at the Helm. I then bought another one that I interchange from the Bow and the rear stern. I rarely fish from the bow, but need one up there. I can Run GPS or SONAR from each of these locations.

I have been in Cal’s boat and his sisytem does work nicely, but I have poor vision and needed stuff a little closer and so I would not strain to see it so much.

You could go with a smaller version at the bow and Stern something like a 332 or 520 and put a bigger unit at the helm be just fine like Nick did.

Good luck and hope it works out!

Tom,

I have a 25C at the helm, a 102C at the kicker, and a 332C at the bow.

When I pull cranks (starting soon!) I use the 102C for depth and use the 25C (set in full-screen map mode) for position and speed (big #’s for speed so I can see ’em).

When fishing from the box, either fishing jigs or bottom-bouncing, I have full position, speed, and depth functions at the bow with the 332C.

The total price for all of this stuff is in line with or less than a new 112/113 (got the 25C on clearance for 750, and the price for the 332C + 102C was ~1100 total). Plus, I have back-up units for both position (GPS) and depth in case one unit takes a digger at an inopportune time.

Just go fishing with a real “river rat” who knows what they are doing and you will not have decisions like this to make! Wow! This site is fun!

Learned abunch here. I did not realize on the bigger units you could enlarge the digital read out that big. That makes desitions a little easier. That might just work putting the big screen on the helm and being able to turn the unit to view speed from front or rear. Having one combo unit onboard besides the one at the helm like Jason brought up is a great idea. Just in case.

You guys are just great.

Thanks
Tom

Well I wouldn’t suppose you need the biggest one either a 7 or 8 inch screen would be nice too, and the prices do drop considerablly for the “smaller” screens. Maybe if I can find a camera, I could show you how mine runs.

Well I took some pics for you

This first one is actually taken with me standing behind the boat, of course pics don’t really do it justice, you get the idea (a little big size wise sorry)

Depth is set-up to the biggest display size, the others are set at various sizes.

My bow mounted unit on the ram fully extended upwards, please disreguard the messy install

Thanks Nick I can see that will work well.