New Elctronics on the boat

[Pappy]

Well a while back I was looking to add a new trolling motor and a new fish finder to my boat. My old equipment was over 12 years old. Well I just retired and plan to do a lot more fishing. So I installed the minkotta Ulterra trolling motor along with the Humming bird Helix 10 Si. I was truly amazed how far the electronic equipment has come. The I pilot link was amazing. Just pick a contour line and push go to. The motor and fish finder are interrogated. The motor follows the contour line you picked. Well yesterday was the second time I took the boat out. Everything worked great. What a pleasure fishing with the new equipment. I can say one thing it was worth it. We dropped the down rigger and knocked the Trout dead. While trolling I saw several fish at the 35 foot mark, I dropped the down rigger to 35 feet. Bang had a fish instantly on. What a advantage of fishing from the old days.

[Bogey]

Good for you - sounds like you bought a killer set up! I am kicking myself right now... I've always been a Lowrance guy and just bought the Lowrance 9 Gen III - not that I don't like the unit, but I should have bought what you did and been able to take advantage of linking it with my minnkota... (I am NOT telling my wife I screwed up after what we paid!)

[JKToons]

Just bought the hummingbird 899ci HD SI and hope to have it installed this weekend, and hoping to get a trolling motor soon to connect to it as well. Hope I like as well as you like yours!

[jacksonlaker]

I just bought a Humminbird Helix 10 and I don't like it. You can't zoom the sonar screen. You have to go to a different page !! So you can't split chart and zoomed in sonar. This is useless. Also I can't see my downrigger balls without adjusting the Ping speed to 3, can't see my jig unless I crank it up to 18. I just want to turn the thing on and fish !! I don't want to be an IT guy on the water. Never had this problem with my Lowrance . The auto chart feature is cool, and the DI is really clear... But useless. I have not spent a lot of time with the unit so maybe it will get better. You can buy it from me next year when I go back to Lowrance !!!!

[Pappy]

Good for you - sounds like you bought a killer set up! I am kicking myself right now... I've always been a Lowrance guy and just bought the Lowrance 9 Gen III - not that I don't like the unit, but I should have bought what you did and been able to take advantage of linking it with my minnkota... (I am NOT telling my wife I screwed up after what we paid!)

I have always own Lawrance before, it was a hard decision to switch over to Humming bird. I just about gave up when I tried for 3 days to contact them on the phone. I thought if this was going to be a problem I was diffidently going to lawrance because they have such a good customer service. Well I finally got someone on the phone and after a lot of research I decided to jump on board with a humming bird. Great unit so far, time will tell. I don't think a person can't go wrong owning either unit. I guess it just depends on what kind of fishing you do. Well I can't wait to take the boat to Tahoe and test it out on the kokanee and lake trout. Hopefully all this money spent will get me more fish.

[Pappy]

Just bought the hummingbird 899ci HD SI and hope to have it installed this weekend, and hoping to get a trolling motor soon to connect to it as well. Hope I like as well as you like yours!

You will really enjoy the unit. I did the install myself, not much to it, it just took sometime. I also watched a lot of U tube video on the side imaging, down imaging, surefire, and all the other videos on Humming bird page. They were very helpful in learning the unit. Also the people at Humming bird Customer Service were very helpful too, to answer any question I had. Good luck.

[JKToons]

Thanks Pappy, just picked up my new baot this afternoon hence the new fishfinder. Just have it and the stickers put put on it and it will be off to the lake to break in the motor and play with the fishfinder. Hope to be fishing by Monday.

[Pappy]

I just bought a Humminbird Helix 10 and I don't like it. You can't zoom the sonar screen. You have to go to a different page !! So you can't split chart and zoomed in sonar. This is useless. Also I can't see my downrigger balls without adjusting the Ping speed to 3, can't see my jig unless I crank it up to 18. I just want to turn the thing on and fish !! I don't want to be an IT guy on the water. Never had this problem with my Lowrance . The auto chart feature is cool, and the DI is really clear... But useless. I have not spent a lot of time with the unit so maybe it will get better. You can buy it from me next year when I go back to Lowrance !!!!

How much info do you want out of a fish finder. I don't know, if you did a lot of research but there is plenty of info about all fish finders on the internet, bass pro and cabela's. All I can say is for me that my old Lowrance was black and white screen and only had a few settings. Worked great for all those years, it's now on my kayak. The humming bird just like all fish finders take sometime to get to know them. I have been looking at the humming bird and doing a lot of research on it for over two months now. Watching a lot of u tube videos, visiting the humming bird web site, talking to customer service and learning as much about the unit as I can. All fish finders are gong to be different, the biggest reason why I went with humming bird was because the minkotta trolling could be integrated with the unit where the Lawrance was not. The fist day on the lake was just a test run with out no fishing. I am still learning a lot about the unit myself. The second day out we fished. I don't have any complaints yet but give me sometime and I am sure I could find some. You talked about the down rigger ball not showing up on the screen. I don't think that is a big deal myself. I will tell you what happen to me that day, while trolling, I spotted several fish at the 35 foot mark. I dropped the down rigger to 35 feet according to my gauge. Bang fish on. Now I don't think this just happen out of luck. My transducer is at the back of the boat and I surly don't see the down rigger ball being picked up on the screen. I don't know why its not picking it up but you think it should but it doesn't. I was talking to my son about this because on my Laworance there would be a constant line of bubbles. I never did like that so I used my transducer in front of the boat. Any how, my transducer is located in the back of the boat and while trolling points slightly at an angle since I am not moving the boat very fast. I did see two light lines while in the side imaging mode, i think these were my down rigger cables.

I know what you are talking about the split screen, I also tried several times to zoom in but the unit won't let you do it. You just need to go to the other screens. I programed my short cuts to save a little time. It sounds like you need to give the unit some more time. The only advise I could give you is to learn the unit and get out on the water a lot more. For me the unit is amazing, since I have not purchased a new fish finder in 12 years, call me old school but the old one worked just fine. With the new fish finder and the trolling motor which are integrated together, I just pick out a contour line, set the speed and fish, I was very pleased with the unit the other day. I can say for one thing, the fish were biting but I also have to give credit to the electronics on the boat. I marked my way point and followed my cookie crumb tracks where we continued to catch fish. Every time went back over those spots we would pick up fish. The unit worked great so far. So far thumbs up for me. Just be patient with your unit and learn as much as you can. Good luck.

[Pappy]

While I was fishing again with my down riggers I did noticed two lines on the screen. One line was much larger than the other line. I did figure out that these two line were my down rigger balls. I think the one line on the screen was thicker than the other line because it was closer to the transducer. So earlier I stated that the fish finder did not pick the down rigger balls but it doses. I am still learning about the unit. So I stand corrected now.

[JKToons]

Got the new Finder put on the boat and took it out last weekend. WOW I have a lot of playing around to do.
It is nice to have a color screen,and yes I could also see the downrigger balls on the screen as well. the only thing I had trouble with is on the 3rd day of use it would randomly change depths on me, I was fishing 130 FOW and it would flash and say i was in 12 FOW or less. it did this to me 4 times and i had to turn the unit off and back on to correct it.
Other than that I think I will like this unit a lot.

[callelk]

I sold my 12' Klamath and the new owner did not want the Lowrance Elite 7 so I sold it to a gentleman in WY. I hope he is as happy with it as I was. It replaced Hummingbirds that I have used since I can remember and it was far and away a better unit. I will say that I had a Lowrance Flasher in the late 70's and thought that was trick until the 3D Hummingbird came along and I have no experience with the new HB stuff.

I now run a Gen 2 Touch Lowrance on a NMEA2000 network and have a gateway to my Honda so I have full gauges via the Gen 2 Touch. I installed a Point 1 that is a quick GPS and I just purchased a Motorguide Xi5 with a gateway kit.

I will say that the zoom is easy and works with split, 83/200, 83/455-800....whatever. The 4 buttons takes me where I need to go and the Touch is so much faster than menu buttons in my opinion. But as they say, opinions are like................

[Pappy]

Got the new Finder put on the boat and took it out last weekend. WOW I have a lot of playing around to do.
It is nice to have a color screen,and yes I could also see the downrigger balls on the screen as well. the only thing I had trouble with is on the 3rd day of use it would randomly change depths on me, I was fishing 130 FOW and it would flash and say i was in 12 FOW or less. it did this to me 4 times and i had to turn the unit off and back on to correct it.
Other than that I think I will like this unit a lot.

Well mine did a funny thing the other day my humming bird went from 30 to 1 foot but return back to 30 feet I find it hard to believe it was 1 foot of water it did the same thing the next day in the same area strange