Depthfinder, Flasher or Graph?

[JonM]

I have a friend at work who's not a fisherman, but has a new boat he wants to add a depthfinder to for safety reasons.

My first thought was a basic flasher from Hummingbird or something compareable, probably in the two hundred dollar range. As I was thinking I know my X-85 has a Fast-trak mode and the LCG is easier to read at a glance.

I'm wondering two things. How does this LCG fast mode compare to flasher response speed? and are there other LCG's that have easier to read fast-trak mode than the X-85. The X-85 just has this bar that goes up and down and it doesn't display the depth in this mode.

Any recommendations? Thanks

[Fuzzy]

Flasher - most definately

[JonM]

What's the best moderately priced flasher just to use as a depthfinder?

[John in MN]

I don't know if Bass Pro Shops still carry them but I always thought the best buy for a flasher was the Jimmy Houston model by Hummingbird for $100-125. I don't know if they still have them but call them and see.

[Gary]

Some Advantages of a flasher: nearly instantaneous readout, some are able to be mounted in dash (std round gage hole size),

Some Disadvantages: Some need frequent sensitivity adjustment for different depths, does not show what happened a second or two ago when no one was watching, usually not as many depth ranges

Some Advantages of a graph: Show a "history" or trend of depth or fish that you missed when you weren't watching it, usually more depth ranges and greater depth capacity, many have options to show other info (like speed and temp, distance, battery voltage, as well as a "flasher-style" readout).

Some Disadvantages: slightly slower display due to converting signal info to a format for display on an LCD (usually not more than a half second, sometimes slowed down by extreme cold weather, polarized glasses can cause display to disapppear when you tip your head to side.

Personally, I have a graph in my boat and prefer it to a flasher because it provides a history, and that outweighs the lag in display time. The other features are nice too. Keep in mind that under most conditions a boat operator will not be able to react fully in less than a half second and unless you watch the flasher full time you will never know if you saw everything. The transducer is almost always at or near the back of the boat and at 30 mph you are traveling 2 to 3 boatlenghts per second. At this rate while going over a shallow rock or other ridge, neither style will warn you of a potential problem. Either unit will display info on bottom hardness and vegetation which is very valuable. None of this info can be displayed on a digital readout depthfinder (I also have one of these and find it to be of limited usefulness. Hope this helps.