Fish finders & side imaging

Sooooo, I am in the market for a new finder for my new Native 10.5 & was thinking how often you guys & gals use si. I often fish both deep & shallow lake for both crappie & bass. The price range vary from 300 to 800 plus. The condondrem that I have is it worth the extra money. Now on the BIG boat I have both di & si & use them both. It seen the manufactures in the low end unit sell sonar & di with no maps. Then the price seem to doubles to add si & map options.I am kind of hooked on the built in maps & use of map cards from the big boat. At this point my head is spinning, Ihave looked at toooo many web sites. Soo what say u Di & Si or just Di & sonar. thanks Billy

Billy, you have probably answered your own question. You are already use to using SI and are familiar with that option. For many people the absolute lowest or least expensive option isn't the best choice for those familiar with the skill set to run the units and by contrast the most expensive with all of the bells and whistles isn't the wise choice either because many people don't use all of those bells and whistles.

There are many options like you said and sometimes I wish that there was only 3 choices and I could pick one of three a lot easier. Narrow your selection down to three and then make a choice. Pick something within your budget, and then be happy and GO FISH.

Personally chose a Helix 7 with a map card and SI for my yak, but there are a lot of good units out there. After you buy it, it's less about which unit you own and more about your skill set using the tool. Make sure you understand how to use the features that you paid for.

Good luck with making your decision.

I would stick with what you are familiar with. I have never used SI but likely will upgrade to it on my next unit. It's another tool available so why not use it if you can justify the additional cost. I agree the built in maps are useful. One thing that is handy if you use the Navionics app like I do to prepare for your trips it's nice for the unit to have WIFI capabilities so you can sync your unit with your Navionics app and not have to manually enter in all the points you entered into your app during preparation.

Clay and Jerry offered some really good advice. The only thing that I will offer is that high dollar maps are less important in a kayak (in my opinion).

When I had a boat I used maps all the time because I was running many miles at 60mph from spot to spot. I used the maps in large part (along with my depth finder) to stay in the channel and to avoid humps. In a kayak, you are usually confined to a few miles and don't have to worry about water depth when moving from spot to spot. So, for me, the basic GPS that is built into my Garmin along with pre-scouting on the Navionics app is all I need. I use the Navionics map to get to the general area and then lean on my depth finder and Garmin GPS to find the exact feature that I am looking for (i.e.: hump, point, drop off, channel, etc..)