Upgrading for Deep Bottom reading

[Kahi]

As with any hobby worth it's salt, it going to be expensive. I've decided to upgrade my sounder..which entails replacing my pre-existing thru hull transducer and head unit. No, no....it's my pleasure to help the US economy, which is actually helping the Asian manufacturer and the installation guys that send the money back to the Islands they came from. I digress.

I currently have a 600w transducer thru hull...running off an older Garmin 188c (much less than 500w) which is now discontinued. I was able to get solid reading up to 450 feet deep at speed, and approx 550 at troll...not enough to get me to the deep drop land I now wish to park my vessel on. So, what are you guys running as sounders??? 1,000W Transducers and equal head units?

I was also wondering if keeping my 600w transducer and getting an updated 500w sounder would get me to the promised land of 1000 feet?

[Sea Draggin]

get me to the promised land of 1000 feet?

1K tilted element. Just make sure you match your degree of dangle to the angle.

[tkoppel]

If you want to stick with Garmin you could use a GSD-22 IT WORKS WITH THE FOLLOWING UNITS:

# 292, # 392, # 492, # 2100 SERIES, # 2200 SERIES, # 3000 SERIES, # 3200 SERIES DISPLAYS.

THE GD22 IS A BLACK BOX DIGITAL NETWORKABLE. YOUR 600KW TRANSDUCER SHOULD WORK OK BUT FOR ANOTHER 160 BUCKS YOU COULD PUT IN A Garmin 200/50kHz, 12/45 Deg., Bronze Thru-Hull Mount

[Free Spirit]

With my Raymarine sounder I can actually see my jigs when I zoom the bottom and the 1kw transducer does the job. I have not tried that in 1000 feet but it works like a charm in 700 feet. I have not tried the tilted element transducers but my B 260 works well. With the sounder I can zoom down to as small as 10 feet off the bottom if I want to.