05-03-2007, 03:33 PM
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]Humminbird 997c SI Combo w/Premium Hotmaps. Ok, Humminbird knew I was too much of a geek to pass on one of these babies. The pure techiness of it was way too much. So I thought, why not, I’ll spring for one and if I don’t like it as much as my Lowrance 104C I’ll just sell it on ebay. Don’t look for it on ebay anytime soon. I have had mine installed for about two weeks, it has a trip to the Berry and one to the Gorge on it, and while I am still learning how to use it most efficiently I am extremely impressed. To start, the basic sonar operations and clarity are as good as any unit I’ve used. The zoom view is easy to access and centers the bottom automatically (if you wish) and was great when looking for fish on bottom to jig or troll. It seems to have a little better separation than my Lowrance, and the high-res screen made it easier to look at. The ping rate and screen updates are also quite a bit faster than the 104C. I was able to track a 4.5 inch jig to 80 feet. I do wish it had better colorline adjustment, but that is a minor drawback to a superb down looking sonar. The GPS is much better than that on my Lowrance for two reasons; 1) it can be set to plot boat movements for as little as one foot (I’ll explain) and 2) you can over zoom more. One thing I that bothered me about the 104C was that I couldn’t adjust the interval at which it would update my GPS position. So, when I came over a group of fish I wanted to jig I would mark them, but with a little wind or whatever I would drift off the spot. While trying to turn and get back to the vicinity of the original mark the update was so slow (20-30 ft at least) that it was difficult to get right over the fish again. The 997SI can be set to update at 1 ft intervals, though I chose 5’ as my preference, so whenever the boat moves 5’ the unit updates my course and position making it easier to effectively steer back to a fixed point. This feature combined with a fantastic over zoom make it easy to find my way back to the top or side of a hump where the fish were holding. The unit is capable of tracking 16 satellites instead of the 12 with the 104C, this may contribute to the better GPS performance. All Lowrance marks I had previously stored (several hundred) were easily converted and imported to the 997 with the free Humminbird software and a MMC card. The unit also allows software updates via the MMC card. The only thing I do not like about the GPS is that I can’t mark a spot without setting a waypoint. The 104C lets you mark a spot with some user defined symbol without actually making it a waypoint. This is helpful when you want to leave your main waypoints on known fish holding points, but use other symbols for where the fish are holding a particular day. It also has Bird’s Eye GPS view which is really just eye candy, but cool. I’m sure you’ve seen the Humminbird propaganda machine in action with the infomercial and website all touting the side imaging (SI) resolution and detail. It comes very close to being as good as they claim. SI is adjustable from about 300’ each side on down. I found about 150’ each side optimal at Strawberry and around 100’ each side at Flaming Gorge due to the depth of the water. Don’t get me wrong, it works all the way out to 300’, it’s just hard to pick out fish and other details when you’re looking at 600’ of water. I’ve attached some screenshots I took at the Gorge showing humps and other underwater features. Keep in mind that the boats position is at the top, the lake bottom you are used to seeing scroll across a normal down looker has been rotated 90 degrees each side, so the lake bottom scrolls down from the top instead of from right to left. Thus, viewing from the boat symbol to the right you see a dark area which is the water directly under boat. Then the bottom straight under the boat, then underwater mounds and valleys as they appear when looking away from the boat. The macks weren’t really schooling up on the humps yet so I couldn't definitively pick out piles of fish, but the SI gives a more complete picture of what is around you. I know it gave me a different perspective about what was down there on two runs I often fish. I have to translate that to more fish in the boat to call it useful, but I think it greatly improves my odds to find and catch more fish. I came back from the Gorge with 3 more GPS’ed humps that will hold fish a little later in the year that I had not seen previously with standard down looking sonar, so that in itself is valuable. With a 3.5 hour drive out to FG fishing time is valuable. Anything that can get me over the fish faster is good by me. At Strawberry in 25’ of water I cruised around in SI mode trying to find and mark fish to jig. I was successful in finding fish out to the side of the boat 100’ or so (they appear as little slivers in SI). The coolest part of finding them is that this unit allows you so scroll over to the fish returns (it freezes the screen as you do so, but keeps track of your position in relation to the scroll) and mark them. Then, as you switch to top-down GPS view with standard sonar you can navigate back to the fish you just marked off the side of the boat. Basically it’s like running with a 200-300’ wide sonar and marking as you go, then turning around and getting right on the fish you just saw. I know that in the summer at Strawberry it gets frustrating to find the fish, catch them fast for 10 minutes then have the school slip away and get lost while you search with the standard 15’ cone. This will eliminate that, just reduce your SI to maybe 80’ or so, make a quick sweep around your position (they can’t go too far!), mark them again, get over them and commence the catching. I imagine the bassaholics will love this thing, as you can choose to SI one side only, so you can sweep a shoreline and not only pick out structure and brush, but the fish sitting the them. Well, I don’t mean to write a book, but wow, I’m impressed. If you’ve got the 2K or so spare, this bad boy IS the best thing since sliced bread. [/size][/font]
The attachments were screen captured from the lower resolution SI, I didn't take any on high res, but will next trip. The other screen shot is of the split sonar/GPS mode on a trolling run and a fish following our gear on bottom. S00004 clearly shows some humps that will be holding fish, S00005 shows some fish scattered around and a nice edge off the left side.
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The attachments were screen captured from the lower resolution SI, I didn't take any on high res, but will next trip. The other screen shot is of the split sonar/GPS mode on a trolling run and a fish following our gear on bottom. S00004 clearly shows some humps that will be holding fish, S00005 shows some fish scattered around and a nice edge off the left side.
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