fish finder ?

[scottyt]

okay i am thinking about putting a fish finder on my boat, to triple as depth finder, plotter. but my question is most fish finder/ etc have transom mounted transducers, my transome is above water unless moving along under sail, which does not do much for the fish finder part. can the typical fishy transducer be well mounted in the bilge and still work. i know some depth sensors can be, yes my boat has a solid hull.

tia

[sander06]

Fishfinder sensors are routinely epoxied to the inside of the hull in fishing boats. The little sensors don't like cored hulls with any air spaces present, however. You can either epoxy the sensor to the hull in a level portion of the keel or make a little reservoir filled with mineral oil out of PVC piping that has been glassed to the hull. Google it up and you'll find it's been done before. No big deal.

Good luck, mate.

[BarryL]

Hello,

The xducer doesn't even need to be well mounted to work.

The first time I installed a fishfinder / plotter I did epoxy the xducer in place and it worked fine. On the second boat I wasn't sure where I wanted to place the xducer, so I used toilet bowl wax to try a few places.

Well, two years later the xducer is still stuck with toilet bowl wax, and it still works fine.

Barry

[Brisco]

Scottyt,

What models are you looking into as a fish finder / Plotter? I am looking to do the same thing.

[scottyt]

i am going cheap, as i dont fish much and i dont "need" a gps ( but my laptop can do it too ) on the chessy this is more for at wheel use. the hummingbird 383 iirc. its black and white but only 300, with a 4 inch screen, the color version is 400 but the screen is a little smaller. i guess if i did not have a 3 3 draft i might be a little more worried about the depth too

[chris_gee]

There is an old adage you get what you pay for.
The catch is that what you get it is often written in the technical analysis of how these things work rather than their specs.
Without getting into the details the power of these things varies how far out the cone of whatever the transducer sends out. Like 22 degrees in 30 ft is about 6 ft diameter of which half is at reasonable power. So if you are fishing in 30' you might see a fish in a 3' diameter circle. Since the sounder picks up the air bladder in said fish it is a small target. Sure it might show what we call sprats a few feet below the boat but that is meaningless.
I dare say very expensive colour fishfinders may work in reasonable depths, partly because they show contour.
However combining plotter and fishfinder in a cheap unit means you get not much.
You would get depth but only to a limited range which may be ok for you in the Chesapeake.
As for fishing although that is not your thing, my suggestion is that you ignore it and target fish other ways. Specifically; bottom shape, state of tide, depth, light, and presence of food or not, plus feeding habits of targeted species plus burley and appropriate bait and tackle.
A chart plotter and depth gauge are both fine, just be aware that for a low price you are getting what you pay for which may be enough - just don't expect it to find fish or rely on any fish it shows.

[scottyt]

i know i wont get much but at least the unit has dual beam, and maps. so it can get me home in the fog if i need it to, and when fishing let me see schools, it says it has a 2 1/2 inch seperation detection. the average depth in the chessy is around 20 feet, unless i go way south and then its around a 100 in the middle. like i said i dont really need this but it will do something for me and 3 hundred is not bad and a price i will pay for some of the stuff.

Hummingbird 363 Combo Marine Navigator - 4" Graysc - Buy at Low Prices, Find Discounts & Reviews - Handheld GPS - Smarter.com

[sander06]

The little hummingbird pirahna has worked great for me.