UPDATE:I tried to post last night from my husbands cell phone, but i guess it didnt arrive. you see night before last while trying out my lowrance structure scan and night fishing, as you remember i caught 17 nice ones----so going to take a picture with my droidx phone---hovering over the live well, i dropped my phone in with the fish OMG! had insurance , but cost me 89 dollars deductible yesterday and a new one should be here already today. last night we were having such terrible storms i did not get out in the boat, nor did i have power for 7 hours, to get on the net.

here is what i did do. i took the boat over to lake carlton before the storm and putted around for a couple hours with lowrance on the phone. i believe that "troy" from lowrance may have come up with the problem. not all boats are created equal in terms of transducer mountings parallel to the water he believes. especially a pontoon sits further down in the back than most boats, (mine for sure as i have 3 batteries back there plus the gas tank)therefore the transducers, both of them may need tilted a tad to actually give the perfect bottom reading.
that makes sense to me, and if it was not storming again today, those changes would have already been done. hubby volunteered again. lol
in the case of the hummingbird, it very well could have been the problem , as after i tried the second unit, i was pretty much convinced it was in the transducer, as i only changed the head unit.
SHELLBACK, i really did not start this thread to be 10 or 11 pages, it has just turned out that way. this is not a thread to bash either unit, only to tell the story of what my delima has been from one fish finder to the next that seemed to never end along with the other happenings along the way.
i will keep the lowrance more than likely, as it on there now, and i really dont think i can put my husband through much more!
i think in the next few days after the rain i will get it set where i am happy. more than likely if anyone had thought about the transducer differences with a pontoon, i might still have the hummingbird. i liked the hummingbird, easy navigation for sure. the lowrance is also a great piece of equipment.
there is one thing that i have to say to both companys---dont get tooo far away from us "common" fisherman and forget where your roots began----an arch is great for a bass fisherman and maybe the pros, but us common people like to see it all. we grew up on it!
i am beginning to wonder how many people reading this thread own the lowrance 7 or up, as i have had no comments on the settings they prefer, and would like to see that to compare as a guideline, as i'm sure other readers would also. hopefully ill be back in the water tomorrow and give a happy report!