Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to Tackle Tuesday. It's the only Tackle Tuesday that's absolutely never posted on a Tuesday because it's my channel I get to do what I want. Today on Tackle Tuesday we're going to be talking about the best sonar units under 500 bucks and I'm assuming you're looking at these sonar units because it's the first time buying a fish finder. And so I'm going to walk through kind of what I would have the minimum requirements for these fish finders and then I'm going to list off the best ones that I would buy right now. So before we get into the actual list I want to preface by saying these are the minimum requirements that I would ask for on a sonar unit. If you have let's say three or four hundred dollars saved up I would save up a little longer that five hundred dollar mark as you're going to see in the list they meet all these requirements so I strongly encourage you to try to save up to that five hundred dollar mark. It's a lot of money but that five hundred dollar mark really gets into the meat of the fish finder market. So the first requirement is 2D or traditional sonar. It's not really requirement because all fishing sonar has it except for just sharp plotter GPS's. 2D sonar is great to determine the size of the object or fish directly below your boat because of its color palette. Depending on what's kind of color palette you have mine the darker red images that you probably see here. These are stronger signals which usually means bigger fish or bigger pieces of structure or cover that I'm looking at. 2D sonar is universal among pretty much all fish finder units. The second thing is down imaging, down scan or down view. These are called different things depending on the manufacturer. Hummanbird uses down imaging. Laurentiose is down scan and Garmin uses down view. They all mean the same thing. They're looking directly below your boat. A little bit wider sonar cone than your 2D sonar but what really makes down imaging shine is the separation between fish and a brush pile or fish in the bottom. So that separation is very clear compared to your 2D or traditional sonar. If you fish a lot of brush piles or you fish a lot of rocks or maybe fish that are on the bottom like walleye or catfish or something that are fairly consistently on the bottom that separation between the actual lake bottom or river bottom that you're fishing and the fish is very very clear with down imaging. And last but certainly not least actually I would highly recommend you save up if you don't have the $500 saved up yet. You save up to that mark specifically for this piece of technology and that is side imaging sonar. Side imaging sonar is key when trying to make the most of being out on the water especially if you're on a new body water. Side imaging allows you to be very efficient when finding fish or structure. You can scan left and right of the boat depending on the manufacturer, 100 to 150 feet left and right of the boat. You can find weed edges, you can find brush piles, trees, rock piles and also schools of fish. I do a bunch of videos on how to use side imaging sonar with my Hummanbird unit and check those out here. If you're curious to see what a school of crop it looks like. But side imaging is key with these units. I highly recommend you save up to this $500 mark to get that side imaging. Now what really separates out the units that I'm going to list are the GPS mapping technology. Some of these units have preloaded maps, some of them have SD card slots where you can upload new maps depending on the region that you're fishing and that's really what's going to separate whether the product is number one or number four as you're going to see in the list. Let's get right into it. Number one in the list is the Helix 5. This is actually the ice fishing bundle model. The Hummanbird Helix 5 side imaging G2 is arguably the best bang for your buck under $500 and here's why. It obviously comes with the 2D traditional sonar, the down imaging, the side imaging. But what sets Hummanbird Helix 5 apart from all the units that I'm going to list is its ability to take a Navionics mapping card and a Lake Master's mapping card. For those of you who don't know what those are, Navionics is a company that produces mapping contours, ships, you can upload to sonar units like the Helix 5. Lake Master's is a separate company that produces similar topographic maps and contour maps for lakes. Now the difference is some areas of the country and you're going to have to do your own research on this, Navionics is much better in terms of the contour lines being relative to what you actually see on your Lake River. Some parts of the country, Lake Master shines when it comes to accuracy of contours and depth. So depending on where you live and the local lakes that you fish, you want to do your research. Navionics and Lake Master's have their own lists based on region and you can actually look those up, just go to navionics.com or Lake Master's, Google Lake Master's charts and depending on the reason you have to fish, some are going to be better than the others. But Hummanbird Helix 5, because it can accept both of them, that's what sets us at number 1. Additionally to the Helix 5, let's say you have a smaller watercraft kayak canoe, sometimes one of those inflatable pontoons, you can buy the portable option. These usually come with a battery as well as a recharging system. These are great for ice fishing as well. I have the Helix 5 ice fishing bundle which actually comes with the ice fishing transducer but you don't have to buy the transducer. You can just get the portable unit with a battery and it actually comes with a suction cup so you can actually take your transducer, apply the, or attach it to the suction cup and attach it to your canoe or kayak or small boat, whatever you're fishing out of. So that is an option if portability is a must with your sonar unit. So I forgot to mention with the Hummanbird Helix 5, it actually has Hummanbird base map charts built into it as well as the ability to download Lake Master's charts or navionics charts. Number two is the Lorant Hook 2 triple shot 7 inch screen. Yeah, it's a mouthful but it has the 2D traditional sonar, the down scan which is the same as down imaging, side scan which is the same as side imaging. The only reason this is not number one is because it only has navionics capability. The Hook 2 triple shot 7 inch screen you can actually get navionics uploaded. It's the US inland lake maps. You can get it uploaded directly into the unit from the manufacturer. It also has an SD card slot where you can upload navionics as well. The Lorants units are what, a lot of people would argue are the most user friendly units. They're fairly basic compared to the Hummanbird units which are more advanced in terms of manual settings. The Lorant is fairly standard and a lot of people love it for that. Now the Hook 2 triple shot 7 inch screen is 2 inches bigger than the Helix 5 and if you are mounting it on the bow or your boat or it's at a distance from where you're sitting, maybe at your helm, then the 7 inch screen might be a requirement for you. If you don't really care about lake masters versus navionics as long as it's a solid sonar unit, then the Hook 2 is also for you. Another option that you might be interested in is you can actually downsize to the Lorants Hook 2 triple shot 5 inch screen which is the one right here. We're going to pull this out of the box. This one I'm actually putting in my dad's boat. That's what it looks like. 5 inch screen capability. Oh this one does have a memory card. 5 inch screen capability. You can get these preloaded again with the US inland lake masters navionics charts. It also does have a little slot here. So there is an SD card slot on the Hook 2 5 inch screen as well. You could also just put a memory card in there to save waypoints if you wanted to. Same with the Hummanbird Helix 5. I forgot to mention you can just put a memory card in, save some waypoints. But this unit is arguably the most user friendly unit. So if you're brand new to fishing sonar, you really don't want to manually adjust a lot of stuff. A lot of people say this is the most user friendly unit. Now once you get into the kind of advanced settings and you know how to use these sonars, you know how to tweak them in terms of manual settings. This one might actually bother you and you may not want to look at the Hook 2's. The Hummanbirds are fairly manual user friendly. These are just user friendly if you have no idea what you're doing. Alright, so there is one, two, three and this is number four, the Garmin Striker 7SV. This is actually the Ecomap box. But the Garmin Striker 7SV unit is a solid unit as well. Again, it's a 7 inch screen coming in at 4.99. It uses the GT52 transducer, which is actually the same one that came in this box. Very solid 2D, traditional sonar, down views what Garmin uses instead of down imaging and then side view instead of side imaging. Garmin has very clear side view and down view. All these units run on 455 or 800 kilohertz. So there's really no difference. Some people have a personal preference between Garmin and Lorance or Hummanbird just purely based on the look or based on the color palette that they use. I have used both Hummanbird and Garmin and I've seen some Lorances on other people's boats. They're all pretty similar within this price range. Now the reason the Garmin Striker Plus 7SV is number four on our list is because of the GPS unit. Unfortunately the GPS mapping unit is a base mapping unit. So we'll give you the outline of the body of water, but unfortunately it doesn't have a topographic map or a contour map detailing the wake bottom and you can't really get an upgrade with the Striker Plus series. So that is the reason it is the last one on the list. The Striker Plus 7SV is still a solid unit so GPS mapping systems, if they're not that important to you, you might want to look at it. If they are that important to you, I would definitely go with either the Hummanbird or the Lorance. If they're extremely important, the Hummanbird Helix 5 definitely shines with the ability to use Navionics or the Lake Master's charts. So that's it ladies and gentlemen, those are the best units under the $500 mark. I hope this video has helped you out. Let me know in the comments section below if you have a specific price range that you want me to actually do a sonar unit test on or if you have a specific sonar unit in mind that you want me to dive into further detail in one of these tackle Tuesdays. You can also message me on either Facebook or Instagram if you have any questions. I appreciate you watching as always. Do me a favor, click the like button and click the share button. I really, really appreciate it if you click that share button. Appreciate you watching. We'll see you.