[bigboatben]

Looking good!

Interested to hear how you like the Garmins.  Heard lots of good things about them.  Went with Furuno myself, but only because I have a great dealer close by.  Congrats on the new gear!

Now that I have used these new electronics for a full season I have some thoughts. For the first couple of months, Garmin kept issuing new software upgrades that added some new features, but it screwed up other features, like blinking depths and a confused autopilot. It was frustrating, but their last 2 updates in July and September have fixed everything. No issues anymore and the ease of use of this Garmin equipment is awesome.

I installed a Garmin Reactor autopilot with smart pump. My last Raymarine autopilot would not hold a heading with one engine trolling at salmon speeds, approximately 2 mph, but this new autopilot has been fantastic, no problems holding a heading at 2 mph and I really like the zig zag feature when trolling out deep with a straight line troll because turns triggers strikes and I don't have to be at the helm to do it. Great autopilot.

I also really like the radar. The twin range display is pretty useful with all the fog we have on Lake Michigan especially during a tournament with 30-50 boats all leaving a harbor at once in lowlight or dark. Easy to use, great bright displays.

The chirp sonar works as advertised and the side vision is pretty cool, but I don't feel it has put any extra fish in the boat, but you sure can see what's underneath you. I like it.

All in all, now that all the bugs seem to have been worked out by us early adopters and Garmin's software team, I'm very pleased with all this equipment, it is light years better than my old Raymarine equipment and should last me quite awhile. I'd buy it again.

One gripe I have is with the chartplotter, mainly the charts. The G2 vision card doesn't place the wrecks or depth contours in the right places on the chart. The old Furuno charts I had on another boat with C Map cards was right on the money, Garmins maps suck on Lake Michigan, but there isn't any way to use another companies chart card, Garmin won't allow it. That is a drawback.

Have you tried the Garmin Helm companion app yet? It's amazing for the type of fishing you do. Free in the App Store and gives you full control of your screens and auto pilot on your smart phone or IPad. Your 7612s have a built in wifi router. It's very easy to pair up and fun to watch your fish finder and make corse corrections from the cockpit!


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