Which Humminbird Do I Need

After I retire, I’ll be living on a large hydro-electric impoundment and will be fishing close to home from a canoe with an electric motor. My target will be bluegills and crappie. I’m thinking about a Humminbird Helix 5 to help me in finding the fish. Do I need to get a Side Image unit which would help me locate the bedding areas, or would a Down Image unit be sufficient? Which unit would you guys recommend? I would love to hear from those who have actually used the units before I go out to buy one.

Thanks

Fiddler

Side imaging helps you cover a much larger area without the need to go directly over it. It also provides a better cross view compared to a 2d image. However, most guys don’t take the time to learn what they are looking at. Great technology if you invest the time to understand what you see

I don’t know what unit it is since I don’t have one. But if there isn’t a good map of the area you plan to fish, buy one of the units that has autochart live. I would love to have that option on my units.

Don’t expect too much with SI on the Helix 5. 5 inches is just too small of a screen to have any fine details, they get pixelated very quick.

Not sure how well it will work on a canoe either. SI needs a stable platform to get the clearest picture possible. Every time the canoe rocks back and forth, even just slightly, it gets compounded the further out you go with the beam.

If it were me I’d save my money and go with just the standard finder and GPS. Or upgrade slightly and go with DI as well.

Thanks, Munchy. Actually, the “canoe” is called a “scanoe.” That means that it has a square transom so that you can mount an electric trolling motor or up to about a 3 or 4 (don’t remember exactly) horsepower gasoline motor on the back. But it’s a good bit more narrow than a bass boat or even a john boat. So it won’t be all that stable a platform. But I have seen some YouTube videos of guys using an SI unit on a kayak with would not be any more stable than my “scanoe.” Maybe someone who has a kayak will chime in.

Where I am on the lake will be pretty far back from the dam where the lake narrows down a good bit. There are some coves to explore and if I cross over from one cove to the next, right where the main body makes a 90-degree turn, there won’t be that much “big water” to cross, if any. Or, going the other way, I can go along a long, straight bank and into a pretty large cove where I have caught some ‘gills before.

Thanks to Randy Wieland and Tuma also, for their wise posts. I’m saving my pennies right now, so I’m not going to rush out today and buy anything. I’m over half-way there if we are talking about an SI unit, but I still have a few more dollars to save.

Fiddler

Given your choice of boat you may have one other concern. What size battery do you want to have?

As screen sizes increase and features like “Mega SI” come into play so does increased power consumption.

Maybe a Helix 7 with GPS, Sonar, and Autochart live would do the trick? Might be a nice balance of features, size, cost, and power needs.

I like DI and find it useful. Can I live without it, yes. SI is new to me this year so I’m just starting a learning curve.

Patk, I have a fairly large marine battery which will power both the electric motor and the battery. But I’m not going far so I should be OK. I will also have a paddle with me just in case.

Fiddler