I have been told that the Raytheon 750 w/sidefinder is an excellent
choice for sturgeon in shallow water.
Does any one have experience with this unit or other suggestions?

Roadsend, I don't know rather the 750 is a good or bad Sturgeon finding unit but I can tell you this. I have been selling marine electronics for a while now and Raytheon (Raymarine) is the last brand I would pick, there QC is piss poor, they have a software glitch in there fishfinders and from what I have seen, they have not made an attempt to resolve the problem. I have contacted Raytheons tech support on numerous occassions trying to get problems resolved for customers and they are rude and not very helpful, unlike Furuno, Garmin, Eagle, Humminbird and other companies who are always friendly and helpful.
The problem that the Raytheons have is losing the bottom, I have had somewhere between 15-20 units (models 265, 365, 470 and 750) returned, all with the same problem, losing the bottom, In this same time period I probably haven't had 10 of all other brands combined, come back.
Oh yeah, I also want to mention that the Raytheons are the only unit I sell that has any commission on it, and I still steer people away from those pieces of crap.

I strongly disagree. I have owned several makes and models including Humminbird, Lowrance LMS350a, X-85 and Eagle Ultra 111. There is no question that my Raytheon L750 is the best, most accurate sonar I have owned. I fish sturgeon often. One area is around the Trojan nuke plant. I can find the troughs that hold fish without a problem. Down around Astoria I can pinpoint sturgeon, kings and silvers. It has fantastic bottom separation and easily picks up diamondbacks lying in the bottom. I cannot tell you how many times I have found oversized sturgeon at Bonneville. My opinion...two thumbs up!

Sounds like you've had yours a while, I had a Raytheon fishfinder about 7-8 years ago that was a great unit, I wouldn't buy a new one. Also, there have been a few satisfied customers, but there has also been a bunch of upset/pissed customers.
This is just a heads up from a guy that sells alot of marine electronics, take it for what its worth.

A friend of mine has a Ratheon 470(<1 year old), hates it, loses bottom, or sounds at 3 feet in lots of water. Sorry, I wouldn't have one, but I know where you can get one cheap!

AkKings, where do you work?

-N.

StorminN, I work at Boaters World

I have a Bottomline Tournament Master HR which has no problems picking them up right off the bottom. It was pretty spendy however.

I got a L750 from an outfit that sells primarily commercial marine electronics. The salesman tried to talk me out of it, but I insisted. I hated it from day one. Losing bottom, not showing fish and finally quit working completely. They were nice enough to let me "trade it in" on a color Furuno FCV600L. What a great unit - shows everything! Anyway it was explained to me that the expensive Ratheon had the cheap software of a $100 Apelco.

BTW I also have a Ratheon (Autohelm)SL72 radar and it performs beautifully.

Just got my new Interphase Advantage in the mail. My old 20/20 bit the dust after 14 years of steady use. No complaints with the old one, I'll let you know how I like the new one. Two power levels and a split screen option.

Thanks for all of the input. At the risk of sounding totally ignorant, what is meant by losing the bottom?

I'm with B-Run on his choise of Bottomline Tourn. Master HR. I've tryed most of the above mentioned
and the Bottomline has given me super service for the last 5 years.....the built in Garmin GPS works well also.

Got a Garmin 160 Blue for Christmas and LOVE it!
Works well in freshwater and has a mode for salt to 1000'

Great resolution for a 160 pixel screen and good separation of targets.

4000 or 5000 watts power, enough to cook any fish in shallow water.

My wife got it at Boater's World and they took good care of her. She knows a bunch about how and where we fish andnknew what to look for and not get snookered by slick salesman. I'd recommend them anytime as well as anything Garmin makes. ( got a GPSIII, too)

roadsend,

"losing bottom" can mean a few things, but basically, it means the finder gives false or nonsensical readings...

You could be fishing in 120ft of water, but the depth numbers on your unit might start flashing, which means it can't figure out how deep the water is, or your unit might give you a false reading, like tell you you're in 6ft of water or 600ft of water, when you're really still in 120ft of water.

There are many different things that can cause this, here's a few:
Physical interference - everything from air bubbles and cavitation near your transducer, to kelp or something on the transducer, to your skimming transducer got whacked by something and is now pointing back behind the boat instead of down. Lots of these physical problems are caused by installing the transducer in a bad spot.

Electrical interference - everything from fishfinders on other boats near you (generating the same mHz rate as your finder), to interference within your own boat, to transducer cables running too close to radio and radar cables, "noisy" power cables from your motors' charging systems, bad grounds, etc. You could also do your unit harm by having it on when you crank your motor(s) over... which causes a surge of power that can damage its eletronics.

Software/cheap unit problems - sometimes the units just aren't that good, or the internal software that runs the units aren't great... which causes errors (think "crashes") also.

I think every company has their ups and downs, and what we're seeing these days is a lot of companies in transition, moving production overseas, or moving it from one foreign country to another... and every time they do this, they are sure to have problems getting the production standards back up to par. I think this is why we hear that Joe had great luck with unit Y, but John bought a new unit Y, and had terrible luck. IMHO, it's all just a shake-down of this move to produce units overseas to bring cost down.

I think one should just buy the best unit that they can afford, from someone they trust, and make sure it has a warantee that they're comfortable with, in case they need to return it.

-N.

Raytheon IMHO is way over priced. Interphase, Lowrance or Furuno (another over priced unit) are the best in my book -- altho I read a disturbing couple of articles about how the Lowrance GPS really sucked! Have fished w/a variety of fish finders (loved that ol Lowrance, LMS 250(?), or sumthin like that, the paper graph one w/thousands of watts of power and dual freq xnsducers, and not one of em really did a bit of good except the odd time that they might have shown us where the bait was (electrical currents puttin fish off of the bite?).

Be interested in hearin from the "black box" users about the electrical charge thing cuz I swear that the Lowrance 1500 watt unit was more of a hinderance than a help in catchin salmon (in the salt).

Sincerely,
Roger

ps Hey Scott, give me a shout sum time RRR (Gun Club Rd).

Dogfish how do you like that Advantage. I have an Echo 600 I am giving serious thought to upgrading with the Advantage. How does the pixel count compare to the higher end Lowrance or Garmin units?

Jason S

I went to Boaters World and bought a fishfinder from AkKings. I went in and told him exactly what I wanted and he made a recomendation. He could have tried to sell me a much pricier unit but didn't. He was very knowledgable,he knew how every model worked and spent the time showing me all the options and how they worked on the one I bought. I asked about the Raytheons...before I could finish my question he told me all the issues with them. Having spent alot of time looking at other dealers, it was nice to find a guy that had the knowledge he has , to go with his attitude of taking care of the customer,even though my FF was under $150!

P.S. I'm not related to AkKings,nor do I have any reason to plug Boaters World,I'm just a very satisfied customer.

HBP, when were you in? you should have introduced yourself, I've met a couple other board members there, thanks for the kind words.

Had my Furuno color video on my Grady for over eleven years, sold the boat and it still works like new. I don't know much about others but, I'm sold on Furuno's and am installing a NavNet system on my new boat. Two 10.4's and a 7" with the works. RadarMarine knows there stuff also. Talk to Bill Pulse (bpulse@radarmarine.com) Most of the guys I know that fish Alaska also recommend Furuno's.

I don't have much experience with all the brands of finders, but will put my vote in for Garmin. When I installed my 240 Blue (temporarily) I left the plug-in loose in the bottom of the boat and it fell down into the bilge area. The next time I went to use it, the plug end was corroded from sitting in bilge water. It was basically my fault, but I called Garmin and they sent me a new power cord no questions asked and I was up and running 2 days later. Having a good product is nice, but a good product combined with great customer service can't be beat.
JMS