Humminbird 858

[Super Yooper]

I work in aquatic invasive species and I am considering buying a new depth finder with some type of sonar to help me detect aquatic vegetation while on the water. I've been looking pretty seriously at the Humminbird 858 with just the down imaging. I'm hoping that with this new unit I may be able to see 2-4 inch tall vegetation in up to 20-30 fow. My question is are there other brands out there that have a much better structure scan or other sonar that I should be looking at for my line of work? I'm not very up to date on these electronics and I've don't a lot of research online and I'm just as confused as I was when I started. I'm sure any of these newer models would be great locators for just fishing. Any information would be appreciated. Thanks

[HONDAM]

I don't have a lot of experience using the structure scan even though I have installed dozens of them. My first time using one I took it out on lake Michigan and saw the ripples in the sand at about 20ft I was impressed. This was on a Humminbird 900 series and back before lowrance had come out with theirs.

[Super Yooper]

I appreciate the response. I see that you said you have installed dozens of them, are the humminbirds relatively easy to install? easier or harder than some of the other out there? Thanks

[sslopok]

I have installed 2 newer humminbirds and they are a breeze to install, The first one I installed took a few hours and the one I just installed last week took less time. That was with removing and replacing a panel to nicely hide the wiring.

[HONDAM]

The hummingbirds are fairly easy, much easier then the lowrance.

[sherman51]

i would reccomend if you have a bass pro or cabelas or even a gander mountain or a dicks, go in and have one of the tech,s go through the simulater mode on them. that will give you a good idea what they are going to show. as for installing i dont think any of them are that hard to install. just follow the instructions. you want the bottom of your transducer about 1/4" below the bottom of your boat. and try to mount it where there nothing in front of it to stir up the water before it gets to your transducer. then its just a matter of running the wires and finding the right location for your unit. and its better if you can keep your transducer wires away from the ignition wires. that way you dont get interfearence from them. and i like to have a fuse box with a wire coming from the battery and hook my unit to it, or run a seperate wire from the battery for your unit, but be sure to use the inline fuse if you do that. hope some of this helps.

sherman

[Super Yooper]

Appreciate the info. Looked at some again today at Gander Mountain which is about 2 hours from home. Guy at the desk was helpful but just wasn't very experienced with the units I was interested in.