Northwest Fishing Reports

Looking for some advice here. I will be upgrading my fish finder to a fish finder GPS unit. My boat is an Alumaweld 16 Talon. The transducer will be transom mounted. I fish primarily in the Puget Sound and Sekiu for salmon - mostly trolling. The deepest I troll is 150 feet, sometimes bouncing bottom and sometimes at 150 feet in deeper water. I also fish Lake Washington for trout and Meridian for trout and Kokanee (but frankly, freshwater features are not as important as salt). I would like to keep the cost around $700.

I am currently looking at a Lowrance Hook 7 at $500 with 83/200 transducer (500 watt with traditional sonar settings), or a Garmin echoMap 74sv at $700 with 50/200 transducer (600 watt with traditional sonar settings). Both have Chirp technology. I have also looked at the Gragonfly 7Pro, but I cannot find information on what type of transducer it uses (i.e. 50/200 or 83/200, etc). The Dragonfly is a 500 watt unit. I have the maps issue handled. I'm really focused on fish finding capabilities for saltwater fish finding.

So, I have some questions: (1) general advice on fish finders for Puget Sound; (2) will the Garmin unit at 600 watts work that much better than the Lawrence at 500 watts; (3) will the 50/200 Garmin transducer work that much better for me than the 83/200 of the Lowrance (remember I troll at 150 feet max, though sometimes I will be in deep water); (4) is there a noticeable difference with chirp technology (for those of you that have upgraded to chirp); and (5) anyone have experience with either of these units.

Thanks in advance for your advice!!!

Hi Lawfin
I had the same problem as you last year. Now I am no expert when it comes to electronics, in fact I am just a rookie to all the fish finders. These fish finders are like buying a Chevy or Ford kind of thing. I bought a hook 7 for my 14 ft. Gregor. At the time I just could not justify spending lots of money for the occasional salt water time, or trout. Now that I have a 19 ft. Stryker that just had an older blk. & white in it I took out that unit & temporally installed the hook in it. The transducer is a 83/200 also & I have not had any problems with it. The transducer will go down to a thousand ft. as advertised. I have used it in 300 ft. of water at Neah Bay last year with no issue. You can buy a Hook 9 from Cabela's on line store for $519.00 & pick it up at the store. Here the link http://www.cabelas.com/product/boating/ ... _104588280" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. That is what I did so I may install my Hook 7 back in my smaller boat. Would I like to have an hds model yes I would. Have been saving the penny's till I can up grade. I think the most important thing to consider when buying any fish finder gps combo is what you are comfortable with along with the price range you can afford. The more bells and whistle's the stepper the learning curve is. So I decide to learn with a simple combo set & then advance. As far as watts I could not tell you which one is better. This is just what I did so I could know how deep & speed I was doing. It did well with marking fish.
Please let us know which way you go & let us know how well it is working for you.
Butch Duke

Im a recent Garmin convert and USED TO BE a huge fan. No more. I no longer recommend Garmin.

CHIRP is well worth it for sure. You will get better target separation and less noise on the screen.

500 watts vrs 600 watts is not a huge deal but bigger is better.

Id check with Brian at http://bbgmarine.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; before you buy anywhere. He has consistently given me the best prices compared to anyone else on-line or retail. You have to call or email him to get the discounted pricing. He cant advertise many of his discounts.

What ever you pick, good luck!

You need to find out what the maxim depth is where you intend to fish. The sonar unit MUST be able to lock on the bottom to work. Let the pros help with the selection of a unit that will do the job in the salt.