adding a depth finder

[Tiltboy]

Hi, I am looking at adding a depth finder to my Outback LS. I have seen the Hawkeye, and the Lowrance models. Does anybody have either one of these? If not, any other models I should look at?


Thanks,

[smokedog2]

Do you mean the silver dollar size display that comes with some of the boats or a mounted screen with depth, speed, fish finder, voltage, water temp etc. Much of that is redundant to Perfect Pass.

The silver dollar screen should go where the volt meter is now. Get one with a depth alarm and a “through hull sensor” (no cutting or drilling on the hull). I have a Lowrance X65 on my Lund with a big fire works burn in the center of the screen. I wish it would break so I could replace it. I sent it in once to be fixed, turned out to be wiring on my end but for $79.00 they sent me a new one anyway (before the burn). It takes a lot of abuse fishing and duck hunting in winter.

[Tiltboy]

Yeah, I 'm looking for the silver dollar size that mounts in the dash. The lake we are on has shallow spots, and they raise and lower the levels frequently. Better to be safe than have a hole in the bottom of the boat!

[JoeTechie]

This one seems to fit the bill, and has been reccomended before.

Hummingbird HDR-610


Joe

[05mobiusxlv]

I had that humminbird one in my last boat. I wasn't to impressed with it. Sometimes it would not work. It was extremely hard to find a place to mount the transducer, we ended up breaking the epoxy and moving it a couple of times. (it might have just been my boat) I had another friend that had the lowrance, it was a little more spendy, but he never had a problem with it. It looked a little nicer as well. That's just my opinion.

[lowdrag]

Have you given any thought about getting a fish finde type depth finder? You can get one for about the same price as an in dash gauge. If you have a lake where the depth changes a lot, you'll get a lot more information about what's going on underneath you. That's what I put in my boat and even though it may not look as slick as an in dash gauge I think the tradeoff was worth it.

[Buttafewcoe]

For 100 bucks, I bought one of those type depth finders and mounted on (not in) my dash on my old run-a-bout. I don't remember the brand name. The installation was easy enough as there were existing thru-hulls and plenty of cable. Although inexpensive, it did have a lot of nice features like sonar mode, shallow and deep alarms, backlighting and stuff. Money well spent imho.
.
But I must say, after having that one then getting the one on the '04 Outback, the factory one on the '04 seems kinda plain. Still, it has it's use. No boat should be without one.
.
Hope this helps
.
B

[pickle311]

I got the Hawkeye for my Outback. I installed it not too long ago so I haven't got to try it out yet. It seems to be a well made unit and looks nice too.

[jayphxoutback]

I just bought the Hummingbird 610. I looked at a bunch of reviews of its performace and all looked good. Placement of the transducer is key to how well it will work for you.