Ah, so you got hung up, or grounded.. well, I’ve done that too. I’d say there are two types of boaters, those that have and those that will. If all that happened was that bit of damage to the keel guard, then call it a win.
I believe your boat came with a depth finder.. I will suggest getting a chart plotter that has depth finding as well as 2D fish finder, Down Imaging and Side Imaging. Humminbird is the recognized leader in charting, the newest top of the line MFD’s that Humminbird makes is the Apex 13” screen and it comes with all of the lake master charts included as well as the coastal charts. Yeah, you’ll have to add a transducer on the transom but that is no big deal at all, heck you can do a thru hull if you want. You can also set a depth alarm, color code your depths and a plethora of other functions. While I operate my boat primarily as a fishing boat, I cannot imagine running a boat anywhere without having this set up. I get it with the average recreational boater they don’t think they need those things as they are not fishing, my first question to them is, “do your anchor up on the water”? To which they usually answer yes, and my response is “wouldn’t it be nice to see what the bottom is like where you are going to drop anchor”? They are usually surprised at this and ask so you can see the bottom that clear? Yes you can, and you can clearly see if there is a brush pile, trees or rock pile where you might have dropped your anchor and lost the whole thing when it got stuck and was not retrievable.
My current MFD is a Solix G2 or second generation with a 10” screen, and was the best Humminbird had to offer at the time 6 year ago. I’ll probably be upgrading to the 13” Apex this year to get all the charting in one MFD, the better processor and graphic cards.
