Newbi to freshwater fishing with an inland "spec/crappie" specific machine.
Good evening, gang. I've been freshwater fishing for only a couple years now and not as steady as I would like, but I'm showing a lot more interest in it. I was a Gulf Coast offshore charter captain for a number of years, and well, the Feds have all but ruined that way of life for me. I don't know anyone that fishes "seriously" for specs to learn from, but I have gone out with a few of my old customers from the Villages spec fishing and took a liking to it.
My price range is $1200.00 and under, currently I'm looking at the Garmin ECHOMAP 93sv Chartplotter part#010-02688-00 with the GT56 transducer for my type of fishing. I live in the Inverness/Floral City area of Florida and haven't traveled much outside of my rivers and lakes around here. Waters are dark tanic and range from 2'-20' and at times can be very weedie. Is this machine going to suit my needs to spec fish or is there something else you "in the know" fishermen would advise better? I'm not interested in Live Scope or something mounted to a trolling motor, this will be a transom mounted transducer used machine. Down sonar, side-vue, and chartplotter/mapping cards is all that I will need, but I do require excellent imagery.
I have always been a Furno and Simrad user and ran brass 600 watt thru-hull transducers on my offshore boats. . .and I believe there to be not many 35' to 40' spec fishing boats out there. . .LOL!!! I haven't been a big poster to this site, but I've been a BIG TIME lurker to try and learn as much as I can about these little fish, and appreciate everything this site and its members have put out there for me to take in. Thanks in advance for any advice.