Is the Humminbird Pirahana hand useful for a newbi

I have been looking the Humminbird handhelds, and I am thinking about taking the plunge and getting a handheld.
What is reccommended for an old fisherman, but new to this electronics in fishing.
It seems like one would be very useful.
Also do they tell with any accuracy the size and number of fish that they are scanning.

I am thinking of something to take along going fishing from a small boat to tell me the water depth and if there is any fish there abouts.
As you can tell I am very green at the use of this stuff.

You could go with something like the PiranhaMax 160 Portable if you’re trying to get by on the cheap. It’ll give you depth and if you turn off the fish ID you can pick up some detail like weedlines and fish that are suspended off the bottom. You’re not going to see fish tight to the bottom on these lower end units, but knowing the depth and where the weeds/rocks/stumps are is important information for your fishing adventures.

If you want to get a better read and actually pick up fish on your screen, then you’ll want to spend a little more cash and get something like the Humminbird 570 Portable or a Lowrance 5x Portable.

A key with any of these unit is to turn the Fish ID to the “off” position and learn to read the unit properly. With the Fish ID “on” every leaf or stick in the water becomes a fish. It’s a worthless feature on any unit.

And to your question about size, the answer is that you can estimate the size of anything your sonar unit is detecting, but variables such as depth and speed have to be considered and it’s certainly much easier on a higher end unit than on the entry level units. But you’ll get a lot of good out of the above sonar units by simply knowing the depth and structure below you. Good luck!

Yes, the Pirahana 160 is what I have been looking at. Is the 160 that is not handheld easy to hook up on a boat, and remove or is the handheld the best way to go for me.
I notice the one that is not handheld is called ” A fishfinder”, where the handheld is called a depthfinder.
Thank you for the advise, very useful.

I’m not sure which handheld you’re looking at but it could be that it is depth only. If you want something that is easy to attach to a boat and remove then you might want to look at the FishN Buddy Series.