[Hairjig]

Time to buy a new depth finder. I fish manily a shallow lake 3ft. to 18ft.lake. What my Question is about wattage I see some modles with 1500 watt top to bottom and some as high as 4000 top to bottom. More wattage more money it seems.Do I need alot of wattage on a shallow lake. I have been running a Bottomline NCC5300 and worked fine till last part of season.Also I think the more pixels a modle has the better detail the unit picks up am I right. Thinking of getting a Lowrance LMS480M if it has an external antenna or LMS520C. Any thoughts THANKS

[basssj]

A friend just installed the LMS 520C on his boat and it is pretty awesome. In 25 years of fishing, it is the best depth finder I have ever seen. It will show my 1/4 oz tx rig weight on the bottom in 15 ft. of water. I have never had a unit do that before, maybe a jigging spoon but not a small piece of lead. He is having some bugs with the gps portion of this unit acquring and maintaining satellite connections so I cant really comment on this, it may be the unit or just user error.

[plop]

How much are you willing to spend? I have used Lowrance for the last 10 years with great success, but now that Humminbird has their new 797 c2 out I switched. Have you look seen the quality of that picture, WOW! It's like combining my Aqua-VU and my fishfinder with the advantage of side scan sonar + GPS. I know it's expensive but you will see stuff you never knew existed, that's worth it. I think both Lowrance and Garmin are freaking out.

[fish wizard]

I have a Eagle 642c igps, internal antenna and I have watched crappie jigs as deep as 50 foot this winter here on the lakes in Oklahoma. It has a 1500 watt p/p power outout. The high resolution units are really awesome. I used a paper graph for many years and didn't think that LCR's would ever have the resolution that the paper units had, but They are there now, plus no paper to feed them. I have watch several crappie take the jig right on the locator. If I were you I would not settle for any thing less than a 320/240 pixcel color unit. The color units are worth the extra bucks.

[Mac10]

You may also want to think on getting a wide angle type. I had a humminbird wide angle (60 degree outer cone paired simultaneously with a 20 degree inner cone). This allows for better spotting of cover on the bottom you could otherwise miss.

[bssmstr]

How do you set up your sonar to see your bait? I've put sensitivity in manual and tried different settings, but I can't seem to be able to see a 1/4 oz tungsten weight. I know it can be done, but not having much luck.
I have a Lowrance X102C

[fish wizard]

I watch 1/16oz crappie jigs in 30 foot of water all the time. One of the things I do is to turn the contrast up to about 70 to 80 percent. I leave the senseitivity in auto but use it around 90 to 95 percent. The most important thing is to make sure that the lure is in the cone angle under the transducer, if not you will never see it. you might want to check to see were the thansducer is aimed. If it is on the trolling motor and turn a few degrees from straight down the cone will be aimed right or left and may be off enough so you wont see the bait. Also if you are shooting the beam through the hull you may not get the bait into the beam depending upon transducer location. Hope this helps you out.

[captstarkist]

If your depthfinder has a zoom feature w/ split screen you could always try that.

[Jig Man]

Originally Posted by Hairjig

Time to buy a new depth finder. I fish manily a shallow lake 3ft. to 18ft.lake. What my Question is about wattage I see some modles with 1500 watt top to bottom and some as high as 4000 top to bottom. More wattage more money it seems.Do I need alot of wattage on a shallow lake. I have been running a Bottomline NCC5300 and worked fine till last part of season.Also I think the more pixels a modle has the better detail the unit picks up am I right. Thinking of getting a Lowrance LMS480M if it has an external antenna or LMS520C. Any thoughts THANKS

I am running the LMS 480 on the console. I like it a lot. I use an X125 on the tmotor. Both are 480X480 pixels.

[Jig Man]

Originally Posted by bssmstr

How do you set up your sonar to see your bait? I've put sensitivity in manual and tried different settings, but I can't seem to be able to see a 1/4 oz tungsten weight. I know it can be done, but not having much luck.
I have a Lowrance X102C

I set the thing to manual. Set the sensitivity to around 80 (if you get it too high it will black out the screen). Turn the ping speed up to 100%. Set the upper and lower limits to say upper 10' and lower 20' or so deeper than you will expect to be fishing around here 80' (gives a much better pic than zoom). Check your asp if it is off turn it on, if it is on turn it up a notch. Some also turn the scroll speed up.

Then put your bait under the transducer in calm water let it down some and jiggle it around. Keep messing with it until you know how your transducer is pointed. I have one of mine inside the boat angled 1/8" to starboard and 1/4" to bow. It shows the bait under the driver's console at 25'. Another one I have on the tmotor and it is supposed to be aimed straight down. The one in the back (inside) wasn't installed by me and I have yet to get a bait in its cone.