Humminbird or Lowrance, and why?

I have an LMS332c in the back of my tiller. I was considering getting another unit up front and wired into my trolling motor. I thought I’d probably get another Lowrance, but after seeing the Humminbirds, I’m stuck on what to get.

I saw the side imaging sonar on the Humminbirds on display at Cabellas. If the side imaging sonar is the real deal, I’m wondering why Lowrance doesn’t have this. The gentleman said Lowrance is behind on this kind of stuff, and he was down to Georgia to use the Humminbird with the manufacturer. Seems to me, most fishermen are using Lowrance. But with side imaging sonar, why wouldn’t anyone get the Humminbird? Is Lowrance going to get the side imaging sonar in the near future? What are the pros and cons between the two? Durability, accuracy, easy to read in sun/dark, customer support?

I have yet to see one of those side imaging pictures and get a clear picture of what I’m looking at. If I’m going to invest $1800 in a locator, I don’t want to need a PhD to interpret what it’s telling me.

I’ll tell you what I have in my boat….three Lowrance units. A 332C at the kicker, an X25C at the helm and a 102C at the bow. Why three Lowrance units? Well, one reason may be that I started with one Lowrance and as I added units, I didn’t want to mix brands. Price is another reason…their units are priced attractively, particularly at the end of the model year. Third is customer service. I had an issue (covered by warranty) with the bow 102C. I sent it to Lowrance, one week later I had a brand new unit in my hand with 6 months of extended warranty. That kind of service will bring me back again.

My recommendation to you is to get an X510C, put it at the bow and network it to your 332C. That will cost you $500 + ~$100 for the LowranceNet cables etc, less than 1/3 of the price of the side imaging sonar. $1200 buys a lot of boat gas! (or St Croix’s, jigheads, trolling reels, rapalas…..)

I think the reason a vast population use Lowrance is because guys are familiar with the program, it’s been the same for years, no relearning. And, Lowrance has been ROCK solid for many many years, good products will have a good following. I had the chance to go with the side imaging, my thought was my X15 has been so reliable, I know the program and what it’s telling me, why switch? I also had a tought time understanding what I was seeing with the side imaging. Cars, road beds, brush piles and bodies are not the game I’m after. It’ll take quite a change to pull me from Lowrance products, when my 15 craps out, if ever, I’ll buy a new one, it’ll be a Lowrance more than likely.

BIRDDOG

I think a big reason is that they are just not tested and and word isn’t out that good yet, not to say hummingbird hasn’t been on the concept of side imagine for years, it looks really good now, It’s also interesting to see the 3 images that they advertise with there new units, that I think is much neater than the side imaging.

I think time will tell, I can’t believe having more info would be a downside either, the biggest downside for most is still price, which I think trumps performance in most households.

Like this,the 3d imaging this is cool IMHO.

I guess I am hooked on Lowrance because it is what I grew up with since a little kid. Dad always had Lowrance so if it was good for dad it had to be good for me. Never had a problem with them either. I have bought boats with Hummingbirds installed but never hit the water with them til I had the Lowrances hooked up..
Guess I just dont like change.. Bad enough when I bought new Lowrance stuff last year and it was like wow so many buttons to play with…

I’ve been running the 787C Humminbirds on both the rear and bow of my boat for two years. My new boat this year will have the same new 787C’s again.

BOTH companies, Humminbird and Lowrance are solid companies and now have solid product and service. You can’t go wrong with either choice.

I haven’t used the Humminbird 900 series units with the side imaging but hear nothing but good things about it…the past 18 months.

My favorite part of the Humminbird GPS screen is the fact that I can, exclusively, make any depth I want– shaded. So I can just see humps that top off at this or that depth or a contour line that runs at a certain depth. THAT is easier on my weather beaten eyes and mind.

Since Humminbird is now a Johnson Fishing company…the integrity of the product and the company is second to none. Lowrance is rock solid and has a history second to none as well. Again…BOTH good choices.

That Humminbird is excellent choice, but you will need to put the lowrance up front and your bird in the back. If you put the side imaging on the trolling motor–the quick turns (it makes) will blur the image. You can search at Yahoo groups for guys that have posted photos from the unit.

I myself have always run Lowrance and Eagle locators and GPSs and so has my son Nate. But this year Nate will be running the Hummingbird units as they really have alot of features that can benefit your fishing/catching. I checked them out to see what all they have for features [snoppy ain’t I ] and am very impressed. Their color is also very sharp on the color units. I am very anxious to fish with him once he gets the new boat. Is it spring yet?
Thanks, Bill

I run the Humminbird 900 series on my Ranger. The units do everything I need them to, and then some. The one thing I really like about the Humminbird units is you can set the scoll speed extremely fast so you can see what is right under you. In addition, as Steve mentioned, you can set the contour color however you want.

I do not run the Side imaging units but I believe in the technology. On my next boat I will be running one for sure. The side imaging does work but as someone said earlier, it has some issues because of the speed of which it operates. If you are a troller, they would be just the ticket I believe

Depending on how you fish, it may be the right choice for you.

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That will cost you $500 + ~$100 for the LowranceNet cables etc,

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Brookie, there is a cheaper way, instead of dropping the $100 in NMEA cables, etc.

The reason I chose Lowrance is: I have been using Lowrance/Eagle products since I was a kid. It is very easy for me to navigate through the pages and each unit is the exact same. Secondly, I know what the graphs/sonars are telling me. I had a choice of going Hummingbird on my new boat as they were already on it. I really did not feel like trying to learn a new system and not knowing exactly waht a graph is tellig me would drive me nuts. So I had him keep the Hummingbirds.

I’m not saying one is better than the other, Lowarance is just what I’m used to and have confidence in.

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Like this,the 3d imaging this is cool IMHO.

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Nick, that looks easy enough to read. I’m looking in the Cabellas catalog and the 997c has side imaging, the 967c has 3 dimensional graph. Unfortunately none of the units have both. Everyone here has some valid points. I imagine the Humminbirds will be priced lower next season.

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That will cost you $500 + ~$100 for the LowranceNet cables etc,

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Brookie, there is a cheaper way, instead of dropping the $100 in NMEA cables, etc.

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Well,the other way I can think of, off the top of my head, is to just buy another 332C (which is the 552C this year) and then have two units with their own GPS receivers. Is this what you were thinking of Lip? If not, have mercy on me and spill the beans!

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If not, have mercy on me and spill the beans!

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Brookie elementary my dear. The old fashion way of connecting 2 Lowrance systems. All this hype on the new Lowrance and Linking their stuff together is just a bunch of hype and more ways to make $ if you ask me, unless you are looking for fuel sensors, livewell temps,etc. Currently the systems are unable to share Sonars/transducer information, so if you are looking at multiple units, you need multiple transducers or a switchbox. The switch box allows you to use 1 transducer and 2 units or have 2 transducers and one unit. I almost went that route but chose to have multiple transducers, in case of one breaks down and a few other reasons.

I have been through the process of this the last few weeks of trying to figure out how to do this correctly. A lot more thinking and time sitting in my boat pondering and hardly any thing getting accomplished. Basically the only useful information these SONAR/GPS units can share for the “AVERAGE” guy is GPS information. So basically you share the same antenna between the 2 units. That can be done without all the fancy T connectors, extension cables, etc. Basically your main power cord that plugs into your Lowrance Unit has 3 different configurations of wires. One is power for the unit with a 3 amp fuse. The next is Power for the NMEA system, a 3 amp fuse and your antenna. The next is data cables that allows 2 units to “talk” to each other. In these wires comes a Yellow, Blue, Orange and Shield(non coated) wires. Correctly hook these wires up and the 2 units “talk” to each other or share GPS information.

I went out and bought all the fancy stuff and it cost me about $200 to get everything set up the way I wanted. I thought about it asked a few ?’s and now it will cost me basically what ever 60′ of 18 gauge wire costs and one Power cord to have an extra station….. So I returned all the fancy stuff.

If you need help farther let me know. I will finish doing mine this weekend.

To summarize basically I have 2 units that utilize 3 different stations. I want to have one at the Bow, the Console and the transom (back). The one at the console will basically stay put, but I will move the one back and forth from bow and transom. The bow station will be indpendent with it’s own transducer and puck. The one at the stern will have its own transducer, but share GPS information with the Conosle unit via GPS Puck located on the transom.

Make Sense????? .

This is the 4th time I have answered this question. So hopefully it is clear?

Thanks Rob!

What a nice, cheap solution to the networking problem. Good way to shuttle some more $$ into the rod/reel/crankbait/jighead account too.

We recently got the new Humminbird 797C SI units in stock. I haven’t had a chance to do much research on these new units but they are much less $ than the larger SI units. This one runs about $950, about half of the large screen units.

Like Mr. Fellegy said, now that Humminbird is under Johnson Outdoors, they’ve really stepped it up!

IMO, Humminbird took its biggest step up when they acquired Zercom, then incorporated that technology into their own fishfinders. It’s too bad that the Zercom Lpg2000 didn’t have a gps option, it was a nice unit with a good display

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If I’m going to invest $1800 in a locator, I don’t want to need a PhD to interpret what it’s telling me.

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If this is honestly how you feel, life has not been good to you my friend. There are only two reasons for you to make a comment like this.

1) You suffer from “If it’s in my boat, it’s the best thing on the market, and I must do all I can to convince myself and everybody around me that I have superior equipment” disease. This disease is actually more like a plague, and it infests local boat launches, and oddly enough, the internet.

2) You honestly believe it takes a Ph D to look at a picture of a group of sticks that converge into one large “trunk” like structure, and infer that there is a tree under water. Or look at a “U” shaped object that shows a depth change, and infer there is a ditch under water. Or have a screen point to that group of sticks and say “83 ft” and infer that the tree is 83 feet away from you.

If reason #2 holds up, well then I hate to inform you that you fell below the “bell” curve of Hummingbird’s intellectual target, and that is really unfortunate…for you.

If reason #1 holds up, stop being a poser. The truest test of the side imaging technology is all the pros SPONSORED BY LOWRANCE buying the hummingbird side imaging systems for their rigs. I was at the classic this Feb. and I lost count on the number of rigs that had Lowrance units in their dash, and Hummingbird everywhere it mattered.

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If I’m going to invest $1800 in a locator, I don’t want to need a PhD to interpret what it’s telling me.

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If this is honestly how you feel, life has not been good to you my friend. There are only two reasons for you to make a comment like this.

1) You suffer from “If it’s in my boat, it’s the best thing on the market, and I must do all I can to convince myself and everybody around me that I have superior equipment” disease. This disease is actually more like a plague, and it infests local boat launches, and oddly enough, the internet.

2) You honestly believe it takes a Ph D to look at a picture of a group of sticks that converge into one large “trunk” like structure, and infer that there is a tree under water. Or look at a “U” shaped object that shows a depth change, and infer there is a ditch under water. Or have a screen point to that group of sticks and say “83 ft” and infer that the tree is 83 feet away from you.

If reason #2 holds up, well then I hate to inform you that you fell below the “bell” curve of Hummingbird’s intellectual target, and that is really unfortunate…for you.

If reason #1 holds up, stop being a poser. The truest test of the side imaging technology is all the pros SPONSORED BY LOWRANCE buying the hummingbird side imaging systems for their rigs. I was at the classic this Feb. and I lost count on the number of rigs that had Lowrance units in their dash, and Hummingbird everywhere it mattered.

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Your 2nd post is all about digging up a 14 month old post, to rip on Jason? That is quite the quest!
Dude, you need to get out fishing more!

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Your 2nd post is all about digging up a 14 month old post, to rip on Jason? That is quite the quest!
Dude, you need to get out fishing more!

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Tis the season for that sort of thing!

Nevertheless, welcome to IDA weeztones.

I get a kick out of when low tech guys I know get one. They might not know what ever last thing down there is, the one thing they complain about is they’re having to much fun driving around watching the screen and not fishing. That has to mean they’re worth it.
I used the 997 last summer. If I couldn’t recognize what it was down there I put down the camera, or if I was in a hurry I’d put a way point on it and fish it. Side scan is the ultimate way of finding structure. I think people who have trouble with the idea of side scan just aren’t use to being able to pick out structure down to that small a scale. With it you don’t have to do the hit and miss of driving dead smack over the top of it.
Most of what you see isn’t that hard to interpret, brighter areas are still harder material, darker softer. Its just the idea of going from a one dimensional depth below the boat to a more or less three dimensional presentation.
I’m betting in the future these are going to influence the out come of tournaments.
My suggestions to the guys is, see it… fish it, and hands down your going to see a lot more. Simple as that.
WarrenMN

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If reason #2 holds up, well then I hate to inform you that you fell below the “bell” curve of Hummingbird’s intellectual target, and that is really unfortunate…for you.

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The funniest thing about this first time poster’s reply is that he doesn’t know Jason has a PHD. He’s a college chemistry professor. And definitely one of those guys nobody wanted in the class when tests were being graded on a curve.

But like Jason said… welcome to IDO.

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If I’m going to invest $1800 in a locator, I don’t want to need a PhD to interpret what it’s telling me.

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If this is honestly how you feel, life has not been good to you my friend. There are only two reasons for you to make a comment like this.

1) You suffer from “If it’s in my boat, it’s the best thing on the market, and I must do all I can to convince myself and everybody around me that I have superior equipment” disease. This disease is actually more like a plague, and it infests local boat launches, and oddly enough, the internet.

2) You honestly believe it takes a Ph D to look at a picture of a group of sticks that converge into one large “trunk” like structure, and infer that there is a tree under water. Or look at a “U” shaped object that shows a depth change, and infer there is a ditch under water. Or have a screen point to that group of sticks and say “83 ft” and infer that the tree is 83 feet away from you.

If reason #2 holds up, well then I hate to inform you that you fell below the “bell” curve of Hummingbird’s intellectual target, and that is really unfortunate…for you.

If reason #1 holds up, stop being a poser. The truest test of the side imaging technology is all the pros SPONSORED BY LOWRANCE buying the hummingbird side imaging systems for their rigs. I was at the classic this Feb. and I lost count on the number of rigs that had Lowrance units in their dash, and Hummingbird everywhere it mattered.

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Your 2nd post is all about digging up a 14 month old post, to rip on Jason? That is quite the quest!
Dude, you need to get out fishing more!

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Thankfully guys like this don’t last long around here. We all know Jason is still reading his Dr Suess books and probably can’t turn on a fishfinder to save his

IMHO,
Both companies make great units, and if set up properly give great information. Currently, I am a lowrance guy, but having said that-thinking of tinkering with a hummingbird unit for the nose of my boat, most likely a 787. From what I have seen, the side imaging is great stuff, but in the direction of what Jason said-the day to day usage for the average angler might be a bit much, but as a search tool-much like a camera is-it would definitely be a great asset. Most fisherman are not going to take a half a day and “search and learn”-or for that matter, days to “search and learn”. My recommendation would be get what interests you, but really be honest if the mega new expensive technologies are what you need. Both the LMS series and 787 hummingbird series will treat most people with more technology than they ever will utilize. Chevys v/s Fords–both get the job done in the end.

Jeremy

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If reason #2 holds up, well then I hate to inform you that you fell below the “bell” curve of Hummingbird’s intellectual target, and that is really unfortunate…for you.

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The funniest thing about this first time poster’s reply is that he doesn’t know Jason has a PHD. He’s a college chemistry professor. And definitely one of those guys nobody wanted in the class when tests were being graded on a curve.

But like Jason said… welcome to IDO.

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What’s even funnier is I gave 2 reasons why he would make that comment, and you still haven’t figured that out yet.

Thanks for all the welcomes fellas.

I think I may stay here. Y’all didn’t ban me even after I took shots at a “staffer” which leads me to believe y’all don’t mind a little ribbing every now and then.

Other fishing forums make me sick they way they “product defend” and control posting to make sure certain products don’t get bashed while other products do.

I honestly don’t have any problem with Lowrance units, hell, it’s all I can afford right now. Jason’s comment just screamed of some of the antics I’ve seen elsewhere.

Congrats on the Ph D Jason, I’m working on mine right now.

Justin

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What’s even funnier is I gave 2 reasons why he would make that comment, and you still haven’t figured that out yet.

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You’re new here. Enjoy the honeymoon.

Comparing day to day use of the side scan to non side scan is like saying you turn off your sonar unless you want to look for some thing. There is always some thing to see.

The friend that just bought a 997 from Wade is finding it the cats meow. He’s been using an X-15 for years. Using it as he’s fishing he’s finding stuff like this. The bridge peir might not have been fish but I thought the detail on it was some thing else.

You can check out some of the other stuff on his site.

http://imageevent.com/okoboji_images/hummingbirdsideimaging

WarrenMN

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What’s even funnier is I gave 2 reasons why he would make that comment, and you still haven’t figured that out yet.

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You’re new here. Enjoy the honeymoon.

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Thanks for the epiphany. I’ll bet you have one of those Ph D thingys as well.

I hope to soon be as comfortable with my 997 as you are Warren. Those are some great pics

Another reason to buy humminbird is that they have people just looking through a lot of the fishing websites and replying to people that are having problems with their products. Greg Walters has been doing this for about 8 years now.