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POPSMarine Electronics & Fishing Equipment by J & H Products J & H Products is the perfect marine electronics & fishing equipment superstore. Buy Humminbird, Raymarine & Garmin Fishfinders along with handheld GPS, chartplotters, marine radios, radars, autopilots and more. All our products are brand new with factory warranties.
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POPSJack G sent me a great Humminbird picture to post 
His picture is the one on the left. I took the liberty of circling the fish for anyone who's new to sonar. He said he caught some fish spooning here but was surprised the picture didn't show the streaks of fish feeding that some of my pictures did. I don't think these fish are aggressively feeding and therefore you don't see the streaks. I think Jack got them to bite. Look at the picture that I took on the right. See how the fish arches are parallel and "stacked up". They are also not right on the shad like they are in Jack's picture. The fish in my picture are inactive but they know where they're next meal is. Now look at Jack's fish. It looks like someone stirred them up a little. They're not as uniformly positioned and they're closer to the shad. These fish are what you might call antsy. They are like swimmers ready for the gun. When Jack dropped his spoon someone went for it! I imagine once he got them really stirred up he was too busy to take another picture! lol If th
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POPSHumminbird sonar pictures The only way I know to explain the difference in the Humminbird and the Lowrance is to post some pictures. I was excited about getting a Humminbird for my trolling motor after getting the 979 for my console but I soon realized I was not seeing what I was use to. With the Humminbird I didn’t get the ease of transition. I see something very vividly and then it’s gone. I’m seeing too much or too little. The top left picture is beautiful. I’m using the DualBeam. If I had know the balloons were going to attract that much attention I wouldn’t have had my sensitivity on high, but I was trying to see how far out I could read the balloon arches. As you can see even on high the arched show perfectly but then just end even though I’m not passing over them very fast. I’ve found with both the Lowrance and the Humminbird that the sensitivity doesn’t change the picture as much as you’d think. I hit a point lowering it where everything just starts to disappear. Again in the top left pictur
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POPS: I'm going to sell some Humminbird units at lunch! lol Not on purpose they just sell themselves! Look back on the picture in post #51414 and that school of shad in the top right side imaging picture. I came back around later to get another picture of the balloons and look what they attracted! I marked the top balloon on the sonar. I was farther way from the balloons so they appear deeper. I cut off the left side of the side imaging. I think that side imaging picture might be what a 797 might look like on full screen just showing the right side. I'll show some comparisons between the 797 and 997 later. I also picked up my "shotting star" again and wonder why. I realized that it was my buoy and some heavy cord from my second failed attempt to launch my balloons! lol I'm glad the cord wasn't wrapped around my foot! lol
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POPSComparing balloons to fish on sonar That's pretty neat! Again these are 10" to 16" mostly spotted bass and not those big spots Ryan catches or the big hybrids MikeB shows picture of. That's a crummy arrow pointed to the top balloon in the Humminbird picture. That looks like three fish together in the Lowrance picture over the top balloon. You can see how their images split up as they go to the bottom. As fast as they go down I think a lot of that is their swimming. I think I probably spooked them. There some individual fish to the right that were not a skittery
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POPSBalloons on side imaging I tried to post 4 side imaging pictures together but they were too compressed to show well so I settled for this one. I set my range on 50’ and came within 10” to 15” of the balloons on the right side of the boat. What is amazing to me is that I appeared to have captured the balloons on the left side too! You may have to blow the picture up to see them on the left side. That doesn’t seem possible. I need to try with a real big balloon. The sonar picked them up very good. My trolling motor Humminbird sonar would not have picked them up this far away. The schools of shad are farther to the right and don’t appear on the left side or in the sonar. I don’t know if that wavy school of fish is shad or bass? Judging by the balloons and the other shad they could be bass. I was more over the top of them since they appear pretty good on both sides and the sonar. The small arrows on the side imaging picture are what I believe shows up on the sonar under the temperature. The tall column next
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POPSJust a hurried sample From some lucky reason I got the buoy over exactly 30 feet. The upper 2 pictures are Humminbird’s on DualBeam, chart speed max, and noise filter off. The sensitivity is 10 on the left side and 20 on the right. You can see on the left picture I was not directly over the balloons but 2’ to the side. In the right picture I was right over them. The bottom pictures are Lowrance with the sensitivity on 85%. You can tell by the shape of the arches how fast I was going. In the 2 pictures on the left side I was moving at about the same speed. In the top right picture I was going slower and in the bottom right picture I was stationary. The Humminbird shows a better picture of the balloons but the Lowrance picks them up from a greater distance. Look at the middle balloon on the lower left picture. The Lowrance first picks in up at 30’ or better which means it picking it up from 10’ away from the transducer and follows it up to it’s real height of 20’ and then down to 30’+. The Humminb
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POPSI got some great pictures today with Randy's and DFW Mike's ideas! I got some balloons and attached three to a buoy marker at 15, 20, and 25'. It took a 5 lb rock to sink them! I throw it in 30' of water. The left picture was taken later in the day when I was about through. I was lifting everything up to see if I still had my balloons. You can tell by the interference that someone was near me. I was off to the side near a small pocket but this guy came in trolling crank baits and decides to go around my buoy. Yeah, he snagged it. It's hard to do 90 degrees around a buoy marker! He couldn't budge that rock! lol Anyway, dang if he didn't get untangled and go up the creek and back and do it again! First and second time it's ever happened to me. I finally realized he just wanted to talk. He proceeded to tell me all about himself. Oh well, that ended my day. I took the right picture pulling everything in. The balloons were 4" in diameter and showed up great! I took a lot of pictures with the Lowrance and Humminbird and I'll get them organized as s
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POPSLowrance sonar compared to Humminbird The upper left picture was taken like the first Humminbird pictures. I think that's probably a catfish that I woke up! lol In the upper right picture I was over the spoon and them let myself drift several feet and then back over it. The bottom left one was taken really trying to stay over the spoon. I repeated a Humminbird picture for comparison. There's no doubt that the Humminbird colors are more vivid. The Lowrance's are better than these pictured here because I had to take the pictures with my digital camera. I also had to turn so my back was to the sun to eliminate glare so they're darker - shadowed - than in real time but still no where near Humminbird colors. Give me over night and I'll give my thoughts on what I found out. Again for you bottom fishermen - look at the upper right picture of that hump. Does that indicate a softer bottom than the left picture? I was very close to the same place but the steep bank could have eroded here.
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POPSHumminbird using the 200 kHz transducer This is the narrow 20 degree beam. You can tell these pictures because the bottom at 30 feet is white. I increased the sensitivity on the lower right picture. Again I tried my best to stay over the top of my spoon.
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POPSHumminbird using the 83kHz transducer This is the wide beam 60 degree beam by itself. I increased the sensitivity to 20 in the lower right picture. Neat color! Those are bubbles coming up in the upper right picture.
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POPSHumminbird DualBeam with increaed sensitivity I increased the sensitivity to 15 in the upper right picture and to 20 in the others. You can see it changes the color some but doesn't drastically increase improve the definition. For you that look for bottom changes, remember the bottom on the upper right picture. I'll have a question later.
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POPSMore Humminbird pictures - DualBeam again I forgot to mention that the first pictures and these too were taken with the DualBeam which is a combination of 83kHz and the 200kHz beams. They were also taken from my trolling motor transducer. In these pictures I really worked hard to stay motionless and drop the spoon directly under the transducer. Again these are good pictures. The clutter in the upper right picture are bubbles that are barely in range.
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POPSHumminbird sonar Bear with me because I'm going to clutter up the board with about 6 picture post. I don't know how to post more than one picture at a time like Mike does and I hate to shrink them too much. Yesterday I compared the pictures I get from a Lowrance 520c sonar to a Humminbird 797. I moved into a cove that was out of the wind and tried my best to be fair and impartial - in other words to make both units operate their best. I used a 1/2oz spoon. These are the first pictures I took with the Humminbird. I wasn't running my trolling motor but drifting slightly. You can tell by the way the spoon comes up in the lower left picture that I was close to being right over it. If you don't see a sensitivity reading on the screen I was on the default setting of 10 out of a possible 20. In the lower right picture I raised the sensitivity to 15. Initially in this picture I probably wasn't right over the spoon. There's certainly nothing wrong in these pictures.
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POPSComparing a HB 997 sonar to a Lowrance X125 while idling I kept both my units on and the top two pictures are the same as are the bottom two. Of course the Humminbird screen is bigger so you have more history. You can also see some sonar interference on the Lowrance that comes from the Humminbird. I marked the same fish on both pictures. You can also see the bubbles in both pictures espcially the top ones. The bottom line is the color and the wide screen are very nice and easy on the eyes but hardly something you have to have.
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POPSSpooning with a Lowrance 520c These pictures were taken after the morning rush. I didn't catch a fish in any picture except the bottom right. I like the color quality of the Humminbird better but I'm seeing my spoon so much better in the Lowrance. It's like, "that's what I remember". I've tried my best with the Humminbird but I just can't get it. My spoon just disappears on me with the Humminbird sometimes even when I know I'm fishing pretty much straight down. I just think perhaps they filter their picture more? It imperative to see your spoon at all time if you can or how in the heck do you know where it is? It may just be me?
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POPSHumminbird vs Lowrance - plus the water is about to boil! I’ve been disappointed in my Humminbird 797 on my trolling motor so I went out and got a Lowrance 520. I plan on comparing them and sending back or selling the one I like least. I just got the 520 yesterday and installed it today. I got out for an hour this afternoon – it was all I could stand! I’ll try to post some pictures from them side by side as soon as this heat breaks. My initial impression is that the Lowrance does not filter out as much stuff as the Humminbird does. The good side of this is I’m able to pick up my spoon and keep it on the screen better with the Lowrance. The bad side is I have to deal with more clutter. I had planned to take some pictures of the Lowrance and had my SD card in the slot but I’m not sure – or I couldn’t figure out how - to do a snap shot. Maybe you can’t? Anyway I left my camera at home thinking I wouldn’t need it. The above picture was taken from the console with my Humminbird 997 at about exactly where I was in the picture in post #5
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POPSI got to compare Humminbird to Lowrance today I compared the Humminbird 797 sonar to the Lowrance 520 sonar early this morning. Both transducers were run from the trolling motor but at different times. This is a Side Imaging and sonar picture from my console of where I took all the pictures – under a bridge for a point of reference and shade! lol I was idling about 10 feet away from the pillars when I took this picture. There’s no perceptible lean in any direction to the two bridge pillars. Note the fish around the pillars. Also you’ll note that the bottom's of the pillars make arches. By the nature of sonar everything in the water can make an arch.
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POPSSonar comparisons In these pictures I trolled by the pillars at a “medium speed” about 8 feet away. I took the pictures separately to avoid interference and I tried to go the same speed. The Humminbird picture was taken with a SD card and their "snap shot". The Lowrance was taken with my digital camera as I don't know how or if you can take a snap shot with Lowrance. The Lowrance’s sensitivity is set on 85%, the chart speed is on maximum, and it’s transducer has a 20 degree cone angle. The Humminbird’s sensitivity is set on maximum as you can see, the chart speed is also on maximum, and I have on the transducer with the 20 degree cone angle. The Lowrance is on the left. The cone angle is a way of measuring the sonar’s strength. The strongest signal goes straight down and the weakest out 90 degrees in all directions. The angle at which the signal has lost half it’s strength is called the cone angle. In both the units above it’s 20 degrees. I think they’re some people that think an object must
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POPSAnother comparison I nailed this one – look at the depth! lol I trolled slower in this picture but was still about 8 feet away. The transducer of the Lowrance still has a 20 degree cone angle where I’m using Humminbird’s DualBeam sonar which combines the 20 degree cone angle with a 60 degree one. You can see where the wider angle in the Humminbird catches the pillar higher up than before and even higher than the Lowrance. The Lowrance appears to be showing more fish arches but it’s most likely the fish moved before I made it back around and took the Humminbird picture. You can see the interference in the Lowrance is gone since the other boat moved on. I got some pictures of my spoon on the Humminbird but when I turned my Lowrance back on for the final time to do the same, I lost the sonar! For whatever reason I got a blank white screen – brand new unit! It uses the same transducer as my X125 so I tried an old transducer but nothing. It’ll go back tomorrow for an exchange! I’ll get some more p
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POPSHumminbird arches Sorry Humminbird but I’ll be able to get a lot better pictures in the fall when the bass start schooling better. I just haven’t had my unit that long. This still gives a pretty good idea I think. I think we’ve become so conditioned to seeing fish arches a certain way. Even though the early stimulated pictures were very misleading, that’s still what we expect to see. Thankfully now they are showing more real pictures in their ads and on their boxes. Humminbird arches are going to appear different than Lowrance, especially with Humminbird's 20 degree cone. I think if we’d started out looking at Humminbird arches the little upside down “V’s” that appear on Lowrance, Eagle, and Garmin units would be unacceptable. I took the picture above shortly after I got my 997. I was just idling around learning how to use it. You can see several good full and partial arches in the shallower water. They may be fish or they could be very small groups of bait fish but that’s how Humminbird arches
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POPSGreat picture from fisheye! He's using a Humminbird 787 with the sonar set on split screen. The left side of the screen shows the 60 degree cone and the right side the 20 degree cone. Both sides were obviously taken at the exact same time. I know from the arches on the left side that he's moving but I'm not sure how fast. The left side has the wider cone angle. Look at the blobs on the right side and see how they are enhanced on the left side plus you see things that don't show up on the right side. Those are very good looking arches on the left side that would compare to a 20 degree Lowrance cone - I would think. nitroman, you might want to try setting your Humminbird on the 83kHz 60 degree cone to see if you get more of a picture to your liking. I agree with you on the old boxes. It was a complete joke. You'd never see all perfect arches like that unless the fish were in a straight line ready to have there picture taken as you ran over them. The last units I have bought have real pictures and non
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POPSabove water pic of bridge These are pictures of the bridge where I’ve taken most of my Humminbird pictures. It’s a pretty good size two lane bridge with wide shoulders and better than some interstate bridges. That’s a white pickup truck going over. I’m under the bridge in the right picture between those middle pillars facing towards the left.
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POPS997 vs lowrance 125 I’ve fished with this Humminbird 997 quite a few times the last month and this is the first time I’ve seen this. I idled back into a creek and started seeing the left two pictures. When I put down my trolling motor I started seeing what’s in the upper right picture all over the place. These fish wouldn’t respond to anything. It was like they were inanimate. I'd see some fish moving vertically and I caught several nice crappie close to the bottom like in the lower right picture – (two were 14+ and full of eggs that I let go! lol ) I found a big school of shad and I caught a couple of spotted bass and a white bass that were moving vertically. I still just kept seeing all these suspended fish. That does look like a small pod of shad in the top right picture at 12’ but that was unusual. Could they be crap? I snagged a crap Tuesday but it was on the bottom. I’ve got some more cool pictures I’ll put up later. Thanks
Pops
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