What's a good fish finder to get for muddy and shallow lakes?

[cecho]

What's a good fish finder to get for shallow and muddy lakes? (2 - 30 feet depth) (less than 6 inches of visibility) No need for GPS. I have it on my phone and tablet... that and the lake only has about 4,000 usable acres to boat on.

 

[TerryMSU]

Re: What's a good fish finder to get for muddy and shallow lakes?

FYI. The GPS on your phone is not particularly accurate and if you are talking about an I-PAD, there is no GPS on it. Does your phone or tablet offer the capability to set way-points? I would look at the Hummingbird 596, 597, or 598 depending on your needs. 596 has no GPS, 597 has gps, and 598 (new) has side imaging. Consider also getting DI if that is of interest.

TerryMSU

 

[cecho]

Re: What's a good fish finder to get for muddy and shallow lakes?

Thanks for the info. The GPS on my android devices are true GPS device and use the GPS satellite network instead of the cellular towers. I also have a few good fishing apps for my tablet I plan on using that take advantage of the internet to find current weather conditions plus use GPS to keep track of the good spots I find. Does the 596 work as well as the 597 or 598 when it comes to the actual sonar and sonar display?

 

[Georgesalmon]

Re: What's a good fish finder to get for muddy and shallow lakes?

596 has the same sonar power as the 597 and 8 just sans GPS.

 

[dingbat]

Re: What's a good fish finder to get for muddy and shallow lakes?

For those depths, the power of the unit is irreverent. In fact, a higher-powered unit will give you problems in the shallow water w/o a variable ping rate.

The second issue is the spot size. You want the transducer with the largest cone angle, rated at -3db, you can find. I would suggest something like the Airmar P48W transducer It’s a multi-element transducer which produce a 38 x 12 degree cone angle. Better yet, you can rotate the transducer to read across fore and aft or let and right