Looking into upgrading from Garmin 188c unit with transom mounted transducer. Interested in hearing input on different brands, pro/cons of their gps vs sonar. Looking for a larger screen for 20' cc, no T-top, no radar. Sales? Would like to stay closer to 1000.00 than 2, as I still have a kitchen remodel to do.....

I put 2 8" simrad units in last year. Very happy with them. Sidescan is the balls if it's in the budget.
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Go the sidescan route whatever you do it changes everything. I have a Simrad NSS7 evo2 and am very happy with it.
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Go the sidescan route whatever you do it changes everything. I have a Simrad NSS7 evo2 and am very happy with it.
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Do you have the chirp sonar?

Price points on these Simrads with sidescan?????

My nss8s was 750 a pop plus whatever you want for ducers
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Yup, I have chirp. I don't us it much though. For most of my fishing sidescan is the way to go and just run a Garmin unit for basic fish finder.
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I upgraded to Simrad stuff also.
(2) NSS 12 screens, chirp 1k transducer, side scan, 4K broadband radar...
Had AP24 auto pilot existing and kept my Garmin 2010C plotter that was existing.

Sounder is Awesome !
Side scan is Awesome, especially for locating bait.
4K radar is Awesome !!!
Plotter is ok.... Still prefer my Garmin and it,s on all the time.
Best thing about the Simrad plotter is navigating on auto pilot.
Pull up a waypoint route or track, a few prompts to OK for auto pilot and sit back or go out back so long as someone is at lookout duty.
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Shopping for this stuff drives me nuts! :splat:

Garmin GPSMAP 741sx two years ago for $1400 it's now a grand.
It will do side scan for another $600
At the time side scan wasn't at the top of my list, radar was.... Didn't spring for either. Also thought all that was needed for the side scan was a different transducer ,,, wrong!

I will say, once I got accustom to the touch screen and menus luv it.
Next one will have a thru hull ducer and radar for sure.
Happy hunting

Anyone else?

A lot of people love the Furuno units for sonar/ff. They work flawlessly and very accurate. Buddy has one on his 24' Wellcraft CC and you can see your terminal fluke rig drop down on the screen every time.

I've been itching to upgrade from my very old Garmin FF unit, especially since I snapped the transom mount x-ducer bracket last season. I've looked at all sorts of the smaller stand-alone sonar/ff units. So many choices.

In the end, my cheap-a$$ self bought a new old stock x-ducer for $35 on eBay and I'm sticking with the old Garmin unit for another season at least. Too many other things to spend my $ on right now that take precedence...

any of the HD units are miles ahead of what we used in the past for fishfinding. I have the Lowrance HDS system from 4 years ago and its been great. I use it almost exclusively in "downview" mode, and only switch to side-scan when I'm looking for bait in the river. anything with CHIRP is an upgrade too.
remember that much of what you see when using a fishfinder has to do with the transducer- the stock models are fine for most of us, but you can certainly get better results with a separate specialized 'ducer from Airmar (or whoever).
screensize has a lot to do with cost as well- up to 7" seems to be pretty reasonably priced (relatively speaking) after that costs go up dramatically. in my 20footer, I can do everything I need on a 7 inch screen- bigger would be nicer, especially with using 2 screens at once, but not worth the extra dough IMHO

im in thesame boat right now. Think im going with the Simrad NSS9 evo. lik to add radar. still researching though.

GARMIN echoMAP ™ 74dv Chartplotter/Sonar Combo is on sale at West Marine for $599 complete with ducer and blue charts G2. Does not have sidescan though........
599 is a lot less than what I would be spending on the Simrad...... tempting:huh:

I use the Humminbird units. Both have side scan, one has AutoChartLive, this lets you build your own charts from your own movement over the water, really cool
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Anyone else? Sale ends today at West. Not quite convinced enough to pull trigger on this one.... The HD and down scan would probably be enough for my inshore stuff, but worried I would miss out on the sidescan....

Get a unit with sidescan, it's all I use other than running at speed.

Looking into upgrading from Garmin 188c unit with transom mounted transducer. Interested in hearing input on different brands, pro/cons of their gps vs sonar. Looking for a larger screen for 20' cc, no T-top, no radar. Sales? Would like to stay closer to 1000.00 than 2, as I still have a kitchen remodel to do.....

For the bay and 20 mi out I would suggest Furuno 628 FF and a matching Furuno Transducer 235( or Air Mar). Both for under a grand and extremely powerful under 250 ft.
Todays transducers make all the difference.

Boe Marine or GPS Store have good prices....