recommendations

I am looking to buy a new sonar/gps combo. I have owned a sonar before but not a sonar/gps combo. I would like spend less than $600. What hummingbird model would you recommend? The down imaging looks interesting but how well does it really work? I will mainly be fishing the Mississippi River.

Down imaging is awesome. However it is different than 2d sonar and will take some getting used to. If you are limiting yourself to $600. You are looking at the 500 series units.

I use the 898c si and 90% of the time it’s down imaging split screen. I do alot of trolling cranks/draggin jigs on the river. The down imaging helps to see what type of cover fish are using.

For that price I would think your are going to be looking at a 500 series to. Talk to a guy the other day that is using his double duty now for in the boat and out on the ice. Says it works great for both. A extra benefit of these newer depth finders is not having to dump extra money into a second unit for the hard water season.

I’ve been looking at the HB 597ci.di,gps etc. really like it, price range is all over the place!

I like the 587ci di sonar/gps combo. Any comments from anyone who has used that one? I looked at the 597 ci hd sonar/gps combo but i didn’t like the comments about issues with the speed readout being off. That’s important for me when trolling. Some units have 4000 watts of power and some have 2400. Whats the benefitof the higher wattage?

I did some more searching and found many more favorable reviews of the 597ci DI HD sonar/gps combo and it seems to be a pretty good unit. Since I fish the Mississippi River what kind of Map software would be recommended for this unit? I would like to see where wing dams are at a minimum.

I just bought the 581i and it works fine but the tech at Humminbird said I could use the Lakemaster chip with it but After asking another question about Florida inshore coverage area they told me I couldn’t use the Lakemaster, which was something I really wanted to use. Now I have to go with the Navionics Gold. I’m not to impressed with the customer service at Humminbird but I think their units are good. Used mine only once and guess I’m stuck with it but would have bought a different one had I known about the Lakemaster chip being not useable on the 581i.

Thanks for the insight. I’ll lef you know what i decide on.

I see the 597ci is on closeout at HB.
http://store.humminbird.com/category/78409/Closeouts

I ended up going with the 788ci hd di. I got a great deal on it from moodeals.com as they have the best prices that I could find. On top of that there is a $50 rebate from Humminbird on this model and a few others through 5/1/12.