As promised I thought I’d do a little write up on what I thought of the Hummingbirds.
As a past Lowrance user I’d have to say I was very impressed with the unit. The most attractable feature is the side imaging. After using it about a month I wouldn’t want to be without it.
Installation was quite easy. I already had a ram mount for my Lowrance and the 997 fit right in. The lockable knobs even worked. I was surprised that the gps puck even used the same holes as the Lowrance. It is almost like this unit was made to replace Lowrance. Anyway, the installation was very easy. I had the perfect spot on the back of my Skeeter to mount the transducer to. The Hummingbird had a single power source to wire up and after that it was just connecting the cables. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
One of the things I was worried about was the menu on the Hummingbirds. The more I use the unit the easier it gets to navigate through the different screens. It’s almost second nature as it was navigating the menus of the Lowrance. Everything is pretty self explanatory with the menu screens. Those of you not wanting to get one of these units because of the learning curve on the menu screens have noting to worry about.
I spent a whole week with the unit at a Bassmaster Central Open on Lake Amistad. The first image is of a bridge I captured. I really didn’t have anything special to do the dial in the side imaging. I get perfect images on either side of the boat. Depending on the situation you can look either the right or left sides or both. You can adjust how far you want to scan. The closer you look the sharper the images are. Depending on the speed you are trolling you can adjust the screen speed to get the sharpest image. While trolling if you come across a brush pile or other point of interest you can move the cursor and it pauses the screen and you can place the cursor on the brush pile place a waypoint on the that spot. The first image is of a submerged bridge I found on Laka Amistad. The image isn’t as clear as it could be, but pretty good for as rough as it was. The second image is of a creek channel on Amistad. You can clearly see the channel and hydrilla growing around it along with some brush.
In the third photo I went out to a local lake and found a rock pile near a dam. I marked the gps point and trolled right up to it. I threw a finesse worm on the pile and it wasn’t long before I caught the bass in the last photo.
I’m sure I have a lot to learn with this unit, but from what I do know I am impressed. From the start it has been easy to set up and use. There is a lot more to it than the side imaging and videos you can record. I was impressed with the Navionics Platinum Card, but the features on the platinum card is a whole other review. If anyone is interested in a new Hummingbird for yourself, I’m sure Wade at JollyAnn Marine would be happy to set you up.
Jason
) has to be mounted lower than any other transducers you have so those ducers don’t interfere with the side beams. I have my SI ducer mounted as low as I can go on my mounting board, and moved my lowrance ducer above and outboard of the SI ducer. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been pleasantly surprised at my ability to use both the SI and my X25C at the same time, with relatively few interference issues.
