Hummingbird 797c2i Sonar Fish Finder

Well after a lot of research including Catfish1 I finally bit the bullet and bought one.

My old one was a Hummingbird Wide Optic.

Fish finders are like computers. Every five years the technology has change so much it is like a whole new world. The difference between this one and my old one is unreal.

All the marketing says turn it on and it works no complicated learning. True BUT, if you really want to learn ALL the features to the best benifit it does take some learning.

I took it out for a day and tried it out. Became a little frustrated learing the side scan and moving back and fourth between screens.

The next day I spent about four hours reading and studying the manual and playaing with the simulator learning the features. Then I took it out again. Did a whole lot better after that. I actually found three sunken boats in the lake I fish.

The lake I used to fish (720 acres) has changed after a storm a few years ago. Just a few hours on the lake showed why. The cover I used to fish was gone. I am having to completely relearn the lake. Stuff I used to fish around had moved as much as 300 yards from where it used to be or was completely gone.

The GPS tracking works good and is well worth while.

I ordered mine fully loaded with maps and so far that has been great. I have not had a chance to try it out on a really big lake yet.

I noticed when I went on line and registered my machine that there were two software updates for it. I down loaded these. I had to buy the cable to move these from the computer to the fish finder about $24.00. Looks like for more than $1200 for a machine, they would have included the PC cable.

I had no trouble at all loading the new software.

I did notice some coments in Catfish1 that the GPS some times show a boat on land when it was in water. I think the software up date is supposed to fix this. I have not tried it yet but the software that came with mine has not exhibited this problem.

I wish I could have afforded the $2000.00 or $3000.00 model with their bigger screen. At my age the side scan is small and I have to get the right lenz of the trifocals on it to see it properly. I did find that in bright light it is some times hard to see. The fix for this was to change the color of the screen to grey from blue. Again this is playing with the machine and learning ALL its features.

There is a DVD video Humingbird 700 Series by Bennett Marine at Bss Pro for about $15.00. This was a worthwhile expenditure.

I had concerns about how well it would work in shallow water. A Lot of the water i fish is 10 feet or less. It works fine side scan and all. The only thing I noticed is that when set to scan 150 feet side to side, the ability to see side ways dropped down to about 75 feet when the water depth dropped below five feet.

Is the machine worth it? For me Absolutely.

 

I thought of one other thing. The unit has a SD card slot on the front to store your way point and other data. You have to buy the card separately. Hummingbird should do like most camera companies and supply at least a small card with the unit at this price.

You do not have to have this but it is a worthwhile feature.

Fortunately I had a spare card for my camera and it worked fine in the fish finder. So add another $20-50 dollars depending on the size card you need. These can be found on sale pretty cheap if you shop around. Best Buy, Circuit City, Tiger direct etc. They are very common devices. Ideally you would have one for each lake you use.

The software I down loaded from Huummingbird will let you transfer this data from your fish finder to your PC so you can back it up or edit it as needed. This is a really nice feature.