Hi, I am planning on purchasing a fish finder this weekend but i'm not sure which one is the best bang for the buck. I have no experience with fish finder so I am asking for your suggestions. I will be using it is mostly saltwater. Thanks in advance,

Don't buy a Hummingbird nothing but junk

I have been very happy with the lowrance x85.

The Bottomline Tournement Master HR has worked great for all of the places I have fished it. The Columbia, Puget Sound, Willipa Bay, and several lakes.

If you want the best, nothing beats a Furuno, but there expensive. If your on a budget, nothing compares to a Garmin. Best advice I can give, avoid Raytheon, their putting out alot of crap right now.

Thanks everyone for your advice. When your salmon fishing in the sound do you mark a lot of fish? My friend has a cheap hummingbird and he went out the other day and didn't mark a single fish. Just wondering if it's the unit or there really wasn't any fish.

Garmin 160 Blue
Designed for salt and highest wattage for the money. 4000RMS
About $250 with speed and temp

Go with the Lowrance X-85 or the new X-91.

Good luck,

Cigar

Cigar and any other Lowrance fans out there, just wondering what the attraction to Lowrance is? they make a decent product but if you compare similar Garmin products, for example, 240 Blue to an X-91, basically the same features on both units yet the Lowrance is 150 bucks more, why?

As for Humminbird's, they don't have the RMS power to be very good saltwater units, same with most Eagle's, out of there element in saltwater.

Thanks everyone for there advice, I just ordered the Garmin 160 blue from Amazon for $215. I hope this helps me catch some fish.

I have had pretty good experience with Eagle and Lowrance over the years, until a customer service issue arose this past week. While I like the unit, they gave me a lot of trouble on a warrantee repair for fogging, and I won't do business with them again as a result. See the topic "Letter to Eagle Electronics", on this board currently.

silver hilton, I work in customer service and we will some Eagle products. If you want I can try and contact them and say it was purchased through the company I work for. Most of the time vendors do what it takes to make the customer happy.

What ever you buy just make sure you send in your WARRANTY REGISTRATION CARD!

I have a Hummingbird Wide Panarama and it works fine for me in the salt, lakes, and rivers.

Good choice newbie.. If you compare price and features you will get the most and highest quality for the $$$$$$$$$

4000RMS is by far the best you will get in the price range and there really is no need to go to the 240blue. $250 more for 80 more pixels? Isn't worth it to me.

I went to a few different places and asked the recommendations and read plenty of reviews on line and everything pointed me to the 160...

I had a lowrance x-85 and just sold it and installed a garmin 160 on my boat. The garmin is way superior, much more sensitive. The lowrance cost me about 400 bucks, the garmin 160 bucks at cabelas. I'm still fooling around with it trying to get it to read while on plane though.

I have a Hummingbird with the dual transducer and I really like it - plenty of zap to mark fish and bait, and that sidescan is really the ticket for schooling fish like sockeye - man, could I stay on the school and in the bite on LW

That said, when it craps out evenually I'll probably get a Garmin. Really like my Map76, and a friend has had Garmins for years and they work perfectly. Can't say I've heard the same for Hummingbirds, but maybe I have a good one.

Escapee, if your not getting a reading on plane check the transducer (how it was mounted) it should be 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch below the hull, angled "slightly" forward and perfectly level starboard to port. Also, if it is directly in-line with any strakes/chines or thru-hull fittings the airbubbles that those things create will affect the reading.
One other thing to check is the scroll speed setting, it should be set on fast, if its not, that could be your problem.