Depth Sounders........are they worthwhile?

[GrandpaGreg]

Depth sounders (not fish finders)..........are they worthwhile?

We just bought a new Pontoon Boat but the dealer wanted $400 + Labour for one.........NOT!!!

My limited experience is that these devices only detect the depth right uner the boat or only a few feet ahead of it.

If there is an obstruction to be hit........you will likely hit it anyway if your're going more than 1 or 2 mph.

Let me know what you think.

[Bamaman]

The other day, I went up a large creek 4-5 miles, and about 300 to 400 yards wide. The water on the left side was running around 25' deep. I turned and came back down the other side of the creek--looking at the beautiful houses. I noticed the depth on my fish finder was blinking, and the water was only 2.5' deep. Come to find out, half of the creek was very shallow, and half was fairly deep.

I would have been upset had I dinged my brand new stainless prop up.

All I want to know is how deep the water is.

[dockholiday]

Agree with Bama.....Actually was really surprised at the depth of some of the water I skied over when I had my first boat with out a depth finder. Think the average cost is about 100 bucks not including install. Plus you can set the alarm at varying depth. This can be helpful and give you a chance of slowing down when the alarm is triggered, giving forewarning the depth is getting more shallow. Now I could not imagine not having one on my boat.
doc

[lakerunner]

Get a cheap fish finder, less than a hundred and fix settings to get only depth. You will prob get depth and surface temp but will be in big numbers and easy to read.

[ROLAND]

grandpa greg... My boat came with a depth finder on it and I've just gotten used to it being on the boat... and I've come to rely on it especially when I'm pulling up in the shallows to fish... now having said that, yesterday it told me I was in 24 feet of water... I knew for a fact that was incorrect so I turned it off, waited a minute and then turned it back on... water depth was less that 5 feet, and that was pretty accurate. Don't know why it gave me a false reading the first time.

[gramps]

Ditto on what Lakerunner said.

[Mosnowman]

My cheap $200 portable Humminbird works great for depth...temp....and of course fish. I use it when pulling into coves and the readout is easy to see. I now watch the depth when pulling into coves etc.

[robdew]

If you want anyone to safely jump off your boat EVER, get a simple depth finder.

They are also helpful for other things like making sure you aren't trying to anchor in 40 feet of water with a 39 foot anchor line.

We've been dealing with over 22 days of triple digit temps around here as well and having a depth finder with a surface thermometer has been very helpful to find the cooler water. 91F water is not really all that much help from the heat.

They are not hard to install yourself.

[Bryden24shp]

I agree with everyone! Last week I used mine to find our favorite submerged sandbar, so we could anchor to it and sit on the sand bar in our lawn chairs, with the water up to our chests. When I showed 1.5 feet, I knew it was there. They have all kinds of uses!

My Faria on the Manny showed depth, outside and h20 temp. $97.00 from BoatersIsland, back in 2007
The Premmie has a factory unit, works great!

[Texoma Toon]

Any boat should have a depth finder.
I use mine for fishing to look at the bottom structure or find the edge of the river channel and to know if there are bait fish below me or not.
If you spend time on any lake and get to know it very well you can tell if the water is shallow or not. But can you tell if you are in 8 feet of water with stumps or stickups that go up 6 ft. Wouldn't want me or my guests to jump in there either.

[bassn386]

It's not going to alert you to incidental things like snags and semi-submersed logs and such until you are right on top of them, but if you pay attention it will tell you when you are getting into skinny (shallow) water.

Roland, one thing that may have caused your depth finder to read incorrectly is that the sensor may have hit something and was pointing straight astern instead of down. My sensor is mounted so that it will move if it hits something. My indication that has happened is the depth indication will never settle down while I'm underway.

[OK Toon]

Roland, one thing that may have caused your depth finder to read incorrectly is that the sensor may have hit something and was pointing straight astern instead of down. My sensor is mounted so that it will move if it hits something. My indication that has happened is the depth indication will never settle down while I'm underway.

I did that to our depth finder this past weekend when we pulled up a little too far on a sandy beach. When we took off from the beach, in areas that I knew were only 12' deep, it was showing 185' deep. I stopped the boat, killed the motor and took a quick swim to check it out and discovered the depth finder sensor had snapped out of the "holding" position. This appears to be a safety feature to keep from breaking the sensor completely off.

But I agree, every boat should have some sort of depth finder. With our lakes losing .5" per day, you really have to stay in the channel or you'll find yourself in some shallow waters. Our neighbor on his Seadoo rescued 3 pontoons this past weekend that ventured out of the channel and got stuck on some sand bars.

[BobG]

My transducer is mounted at the back of my starboard toon. When I'm going above 20 MPH, it freaks out because of the turbulence in the water, and says I'm in zero feet, or something interesting like that.

But shoot, mine is a color GPS/FishFinder, and it was only around $400, I think. It's a Humminbird 385ci