As the title states. I am looking for reviews on the 385ci. I am wanting a unit I can use in the canoe in the summer as well as in the truck, sled, wheeler, on the ice, etc in the winter. I like the idea of GPS mapping and flasher/sonar all in one? Anybody using the 385ci yet? Thoughts?
I bought this unit for many of the same reasons as you and am about to take it into the BWCA. It is still up there on battery consumption. I am thinking it may be better to get a grayscale fishfinder and handheld GPS but I wanted it to complement my 798c si in the boat and the lakemaster humminbird features are great. I’m getting about 16 hours on a Cabela’s 8ah battery with backlighting at 100%. If you have any specific questions just let me know. If you pass through the north metro you’re welcome to pick mine up and test drive it for a day or two
16 hours huh? I can live with that. I have a cabin bordering the BWCA and where I go I usually come back to the cabin at night. So I can recharge.
Please shoot me a review of the actual functionality of the 385ci on the trip. I would love to hear what you like and more importantly dislike about it.
Thanks.
Of course like you, I have debated getting a handheld as well. Any recommendations on a handheld that will accept map chips?
I just got back yesterday and was very happy with how the 385ci functioned in the BWCA.
As I mentioned under initial testing I thought that I could get 16 hours out of 1 battery. Fishing is why I’m there so even though it made my pack heavy as hell (65 lbs.) I packed in 2 batteries and made a lightweight 8-AA lithium battery pack to take on a daytrip. We canoed and portaged for 15 1/2 miles and basecamped.
It’s still early enough that when fishing for ‘eyes the GPS was not as important as the sonar because we fished 100% shoreline structure. I find that since the resolution is lower that I like the fish symbols on with this unit. When we found concentrations of baitfish and fish symbols we caught fish, simple as that. No symbols and bait balls, no fish.
Where the GPS really shined was open water trolling for lakers. Surface water temps are already 73 degrees up there and that told me I had to go deep. We connected with lakers very early and quickly found that by running spoons 30-40 feet down over 50-60 fow that it was game on. Nothing fast and furious by any means but we likely never went an hour without catching a trout. This is where the GPS really shined with the lakemaster depth highlighting. Without the GPS I think we would have struggled to stay on the right depths and especially the more interesting structure at those depths. Overall I was really happy with the unit and can’t wait for something like an 16ah deep cycle lithium rechargable to become more readily available at a decent price point.
If I were asked to find a negative it is that I don’t feel that the internal GPS is all that accurate and this causes the speed to bounce around a lot. I know I’ve read elsewhere the same complaint about the “i” units. So if I want to troll at 1.4mph I have to watch it bounce from 1-1.8 mph. Of course this could have also been because paddling produces a less consistent speed (a good thing for trolling IMO), but I see the same thing vis-a-vis my 798c si on the boat.
If you’re thinking about using the unit for ice fishing, check out Jason Halfen’s site for some articles he did.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
