Need help with budget fish finder setup for first bass boat

[jaclark91]

Hi guys, I'm a new poster on the forum although I have been lurking for a while. I bought my first bass boat last week and I am trying to decide on which fish finders to get. Mainly looking at Humminbird units since they are the only brand that have contour maps of most of my local lakes. I have been fishing out of kayaks for the last couple years and so I already have a Humminbird Helix 5 Chirp DI GPS G2 with a southeast smartstrike card as well as a Garmin Striker Plus 4CV which I can use or sell.

Main features I want are mega side imaging/gps/2d sonar at the console and a unit at the bow with at least gps/2d sonar networked with the console unit so my waypoints are shared. It would be nice if I could see the side imaging on the bow as well via networking although I'm not sure if that is possible. I'm trying to figure out the cheapest way to accomplish this. Whatever I get I will be trying to find used on ebay to save money.

I was thinking of buying the Helix 7 Mega SI GPS G3n or G2n for the console (although I'm not sure if the screen will be big enough to view si/gps/2d all at once) and then looking for an older 800 or 900 series with a good size screen on ebay to put on the bow and network with the console unit. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

[Bob B]

If you want to invest in a Mega imaging unit .... I would recommend at least going to the 8 SI G3n (not full model #) instead of the 7. You will get double the power output, 2 card slots instead of 1 and a MUCH better transducer .... as well as a little bit more size. With ANY SI unit, the bigger screen you have the better.... and you will never be sorry you got a larger unit with more features.

[Wayne P.]

This is the combo view you stated at the default setting for the Helix 7 MEGA SI GPS G3:



This is the minimum Chart size setting with that view:



The display width of the H7 is 6 1/8".
I agree a larger unit is a lot better for Side Imaging.

[jaclark91]

Thanks, I'll save a little more and get the helix 8 then. I might try putting one of my current fish finders on the console as well and run the 2d sonar off that to save some screen space too, not sure if I'd get interference from running multiple transducers on the transom though.