Review of Humminbird 597ci HD DI

A while back I had asked for input on this unit. I got a full day with it on Sunday. Here are my thoughts.

I have only had this unit out once on my kayak but I love it. I considered this unit (597ci HD DI), the 788, 798 and the comparable Lowrance units for use in my kayak. I decided that I did not want to pay the premium for side imaging, and wanted a traditional sonar as well as DI capability. I also decided that I wanted as many pixels as possible on the screen for sharpness. In the end I felt that for me this unit offered the best tradeoff in cost, performance and features. I was also fortunate to catch it discounted on Amazon for $567.99 (with overnight shipping). At that price the step up to the 788ci HD DI was not worth it for me (another $160 for a better base map and dual SD slots).

I installed the transducer to shoot through the hull of my kayak. The performance shooting through the hull seemed great. However, I don't have a comparison with not shooting through the hull. In the end I had great pictures in 135' of water. I was happy

I was impressed with how readable the screen was throughout the entire day. I had clouds and sun, but never any problem reading the screen from about 4' away.

The 2D sonar was really great at both the 200kHz and 455kHz settings. I anchored in a channel near the edge of a canyon like rise from 90' to 60' to see if I could the difference in switching between the two transducers. The wider 200kHz was picking up the 60' edge of the channel while with the narrower 455kHz I only saw the 90' channel bottom. It was cool to see the difference. I think this will be useful when trying to precisely anchor in these situations. I marked many fish throughout the day, however, I can not be sure if they were real, junk in the water, or artifacts. I need to run some tests in some really clear water some day.

The DI capability was impressive. I fished over a lot of rocks and boulders and they showed up very clearly. There were no trees or weeds in the area I was fishing so I did not get to match a real world view that was similar to those on the simulator. However, the rocks show up with incredible detail. I used the sonar in split sonar/DI mode a lot of the day and would sometimes switch to whole screen for the sonar or the DI.

The GPS seemed pretty amazing. I went back to a spot (near the shoreline) that I had marked early in the day and it put me precisely back on that spot. I was impressed. Way better than my 20 year old GPS used to do! Once I got back home it was also very cool to be able to download the waypoints and plot them on google earth using HumminbirdPC. They showed up exactly where I marked them (relative to the docks).

There are a ton of features I have not explored yet, but so far I am really happy with my purchase. I can only imagine liking it more and more.

thats good to hear,i was considering getting that model.but my minimun wage is making me wait.i curious how trees and sunken boats would look