on my little plaka,  i had a lowrance lms525 sounder/chartplotter

brilliant colour unit that didn't break the bank , navionics charts , plenty powerful enough seeing as you'll not be going out deeper than 40  meters (if your metro area)

the best thing about this combo unit  (some people don't like combo')

is the ability to sound a nice lump/fish/structure  and move a vertical cursor line back over the lump you passed , and plot that precise position without having to turn boat around and re sound it out to mark it.

exellent sounder i use it for finding good snapper ground in my 12ft tinnie - the thicker the colour band the harder the ground is the hard ground fishes the best

I have a lowrance 525 ,top little unit pick them up from the us cheep as .

a little lowarnce HDS5 will fit the bill perfect

Thanks for the comments guys. Called into Oceanside this evening and the guys were kind enough to give me a bit of a crash course in sounder technology. Thanks Ryan and Honsu.

I really liked the furuno 620 but not sure I can convince the wife that I need a $1500 sounder for the tinny. The 4100, albeit monochrome, looks like it will do the job nicely but the colour versions are just so nice!

Mako, I intend to check out the HDS5 before making a final decision.

buying a sounder is best done, when you first make the budget limits and then the fishing limits.
As nice a FCV620 is, it's an overkill if you fishing in less than 30m of water most of the time. ( just my view and I'm a Furuno freak of note...lol)
I have had the little lowrance before and they work great and the smaller transducers are easy to fit on the tinnies.

Secondly 300~600 watts is perfect for tinnie fishing, so you can look at the Hummingbird units and even a discounted Navman unit ( remember they stoping the production of the Navman gear now... being phased out.)

as for colour, well colour is king and worth every cent extra over b/w when it comes to identifing good ground.

if you on a budget my choices would be:
Lowerance: HDS 5 ( combo version)
Hummmingbird: 383C ( combo)
Garmin: 450s ( combo)
Navman / northstar: 657 (combo)

all are around the $1000 mark,
(in that order)

if you don't have a budget the FCV620 is the top dog here, but it's not a combo, so you'd need a GPS still.
if you only looking for a sounder, then the above models are much cheaper ( saving around $300 on each)with out the GPS combo.
Hummmingbird: 300C
Garmin: 400c
both good colour units for under $500!

all of the above units come with transponders that work well out of the box, only the FCV620 Furuno unit does not come with it's transducer and allows you to choose what you need.

ps don't forget on a tinnie you tend to have less battery grunt than a bigger boat, so watch your power consumption too.

Thanks Tony.

I checked out the HDS 5 today and was very impressed. The salesman advised me there is another model (elite) out in a couple of weeks but he wasn't sure of the specs so i'll have a look on the website and compare the two.

I am also unsure about getting a combo unit. Need to do some more reading of opinions etc. I also have an iphone which you can get a Navionics application for. I'll download it tonight and see how functional it is. it's only 14.99 so no big loss if it's rubbish.

get the combo mate.

there are applications where it is ideal like yours.

there's even a book or two by rick huckstep about the lowrance unit showing you how to read it.

invaluable

I am certainly tending towards getting the combo grayzeee.

Thanks for the tip on the book, i'll check it out.

and find it awesome. I run a seperate GPS though. Combos do my head in!!

There's also a dvd by lowrance called "Go Fishing with Lowrance" Got my copy from All Boats in Kingsley for $15.

Bought an Eagle combo (Made by Lowrance) for our first dingy due to lack of room and had no issues. Only thing is screen size is a bit small when running a split screen. Now have it in the current boat and will be fitting a Lowrance Globalmap 5200 on the weekend so can run two at full screen and have a backup GPS if the main unit fails.

Cheers,
David

Beejay,
PM sent re: dvd.

Cheers,
David