Lowrance "Elite-5 HDI" Fishfinder/Chartplotter Hot

I purchased this unit the day it came out on September 20th 2013. Had it installed 2 weeks later temporarily as I need some time where to drill and to also find ways to run the wires thru hull being water tight.

The transducer needs to be mounted so it penetrates water surface. In hull install not recommended as it degrades signal & imaging. The Ram Mounts transducer flex arm setup is really nice as you can now mount to screwballs, track systems, and mighty mounts. I do recommend mounting the ram mounts transducer arm at the stern of the kayak. It seems mounting it off the stern provides less drag in the water than just mounting it up by your feet or the bow. Another way of mounting the transducer is if you have a removable skid plate like on Jackson Kayaks fishing line. See my blog post at [url]http://www.theplastichull.net/2013/10/01/jackson-cuda-skid-plate-transducer-mount-fabrication/[/url] for my DIY made transducer bracket fabrication and mounting. It will work with any kayak that has a bolt on replaceable skid plate. It works rather well. Only cons so far is in thick weeds it tends to grab hold and you drag weeds around.

The compact design of the unit is nice. The Elite7 HDI is just too large for a kayak. There's enough stuff in the way right? The Elite 5 HDI is the perfect size. Ram Mounts also has a product for mounting the head unit using a ram ball and arm mounting system. I must say it is rather nice. The bracket provided with the unit only lets you tilt the unit up and down. As with the RAM system you can move the unit out of the way and if mounted to a track system slide it back and fourth. Trust me its worth the extra money.

Also The Elite 5 HDI including both the Broadband Sonar and a Down Scan Imaging aka (HDI) you have the option to overlay the sonar and the structure scan screens. This allows you to see fish where with a DSI only unit it is not easy to distinguish fish from debris. Also all of the pages are completely customizable along with fishing types.

The stock Chart plotter is decent. I do recommend upgrading to the better charts. Myself I went with the Navionics Gold. Trust me its worth it. The GPS is very very accurate. Just the sensitivity of the speed explains it all. My handheld GPS would update my speed say every 2-3 seconds. This GPS is instant and reads down to 0.1 MPH.

Battery life seems to be fine with this unit as I am currently using a 12V 12Ah sealed battery. After a weekend of fishing say 15 hours starting at 12.9 volts I was only down to 12.5 volts. This will probably vary with the air temperature.

I strongly recommend this unit to hardcore kayak anglers. The price is right on this unit. Wish I could get into more detail but only have been fishing about 8 times since I installed the unit on my yak. I am still exploring the settings when I have a break in fishing.