StorminN, we sale the Furuno 1622 (2.2 kw) with an 18" radome for $999, the only other radar even close to that in this price range is the JRC 1500 but I wouldn't put the JRC in the same league as a Furuno.

The 1622 is LCD as are most electronics anymore.

It seems like nobody is using their sounder to find the fish. I agree that I would rather have my GPS than a sounder because salmon are typically going to hang in the same areas during certain tides and the birds will help you to locate the bait (murrs and loons more than seagulls). But, I love my fishfinder and would trade it for nothing.

I can watch salmon swimming between all my baits checking each one out. Sometimes they even come up and look at the bubbles produced by my kicker. I have gotten so used to reading my machine I can call witch rod the fish will bite. I called the bite on the fish in the avatar. I was fishing a rod of my bow motor mooching. I always set this rod out 12 pulls. This puts the bait about 10 feet deep and right below my kicker. I watched the fish come of the bottom look at my two deep baits and 5 seconds later took my shallow bait.

Drifter,
Dont get me wrong I use mine mostly as a depth finder to keep my DR balls from hanging up.But if I see fish or bait on it I will make afew passes thru that area and have caught alot of fish that way.

Drifter,
What kind of FF do you use? I would like to get mine to perform that well.
JMS

I have a Furuno 582 with a through-hole transducer. I have used the same machine with a transom mount transducer and it does not perform as well. When I had my boat built I had the builder make a flat spot on the hull for the transducer.

The machine is a little spendy, but by reading the marks I can differentiate between bass, King, and Coho.

After spending a lot of time with the machine I can tell what the salmon are doing as well. If they are feeding agressively in bait, (Red slashes ripping through bait) hunting aggressively for bait (angled red bananas at various depths in the same area), or just swimming; not interested in feeding (horizontal bananas yellow or green in color). The horizontal bananas will still bite put it takes a little more persistamce.

Thanks AKKings for the radar info, but I think any big purchases are on hold for a little bit, see the "SU van stolen" thread for an explanation...

-N.

Gotta agree... turn everything off and go to manual...

I don't just use the FF to watch bottom contour and the ball(s)... I can tell the type of bait by shape of the formation. Bottom hardness is another key feature... especially for crabbing.

As far as sensitivity... try cranking it down a few notches.. With the sensitivity cranked up, more than likely your picking up things close to the edge or outside of the transducer's cone.

Downriggin'

StorminN

If you recover the van and are still in the market, the Tacoma boat show starts around the end of the month, our (Seattle boat show) price if I remember correctly was $938, should be the same there.