Most units also include on-screen readouts for speed, compass direction, route mileage and more.
And for those who like to troll up a grouper or striper in ship channels and other structure found inside large bays, again the plotter combined with a quality depthfinder makes the job far easier. You can see the exact edge of the channel, locate any unusual ledges or rockpiles, and actually spot the fish holding over it. Hit the “Man Overboard” or other instant waypoint marker button and you know just where the fish are. You can return to anchor up on the spot with live bait, jigs or crankbaits. And after you’ve made a few trips, you have a whole catalog of these spots, much easier to understand than those cryptic numbers scribbled in a little black book. Not to say you shouldn’t have the black book or some other system as a backup. Remember that chartplotters are computers, and like all computers, they eventually crash. If you have no backup, you lose all your locations. Fortunately, some of the recent units offer download possibilities to electronic storage, so backup is easy.
Some chartplotters have built in tide charts; move the cursor over any location with a “T” in a little blue box and the stage of the tide at this moment immediately comes up. This can be a huge help in seeing where you ought to be at each hour of your fishing day.
In general, running the units is intuitive for anyone at all familiar with computerized gizmos from wristwatches to cellphones to desktops. I used mine for several months before I ever read the manual, and odds are you can do the same with any machine you choose. It’s just a matter of working through the various menus to get what you want.
And, if you have not been using a color sonar, you’ll also be amazed at how much easier it is to read the color screens. Just make sure to buy a unit that is “sunlight visible.” Some of the older models, including a few still on the market, are not bright enough to read in full sun. A hood over the screen helps, but that makes it tough to see the screen from some angles.
You can install plotters yourself. The puck for the GPS can be mounted right on your dash—and some models, like several from Garmin, include the antenna right on the box so there’s no separate plug-in or mount. I put my sonar transducer on the transom, which gives the sharpest readout since you’re not shooting through fiberglass. The wire trailing over the stern is not so clean as putting the transducer inside the hull, but I’d rather have the stronger depthfinder images. Be sure to fuse the wires to the power bus with the fuses provided. I marked my connectors with a dot of white paint so I can see which side goes up in near-dark conditions. I use my machine on both my saltwater rig and a freshwater bass boat, so I bought two transducers and wires, and simply swap the machine and the GPS antenna from one to the other as needed.
Charts scroll at speed, and console mount position keeps waypoint and other function buttons within easy reach.
The amazing thing about these combined machines is the price. You can get a color machine like the Lowrance M68C for just $400, and even the mid-size models like the Garmin 178C, the Lowrance 337C and the Humminbird Matrix 97 come in at around $700 to $850. (I know, that ain’t cheap compared to the hand-held GPS at $100 and the basic black & white sonar at $80, but believe me, it’s money well spent.) The full-sized models typically start at around $1,100. In general, the bigger the screen, the easier it is to read, but on some boats the smaller units are actually better because they don’t block the forward view like a large box does. When you’re mounting your unit, think about the visibility when you’re seated at the wheel; if possible put the machine to one side or mount it low so that it doesn’t make it tough for you to see your line of travel.
