Men came home from World War II, fish and game clubs grew, and eventually Boston Whaler’s 1961 Nauset 16 arrived with an intentional and clear center-console design. Modern tournament fishing is widely quoted as beginning with Ray Scott’s 1967 All-American bass tournament, and anglers found their fishing spots through trial and error. All that was missing from leisure fishing was a way to find more fish.
Commercial global positioning system (GPS) usage ascended in the early 2000s, big-game anglers marked digital waypoints, and at present, the leader in marine chartplotters and fish finders is the Garmin Marine GPS.
Today, the issue is never where to find a Garmin GPS or whether it’s worth it. It’s how to install one.
The Garmin Marine GPS versus all others
We use “Garmin Marine GPS” as an overarching term for its chartplotters and fish finders, and even the Smartwatch you can put on your wrist. Garmin has never been the only marine navigational brand–they’re simply the one that defines modern Gulf Coast sportfishing. They are ubiquitous.
You can argue for Raymarine versus Garmin, or a Simrad, and find others have already made some pretty good arguments. We’ll leave those discussions for the forums. For a boater who is not considering a Garmin, but considering which Garmin, the brand’s decades of navigational evolution prove standalone value: They’re rugged, sophisticated, sleek, and continue to adapt to the modern sportfisher’s needs.
A Garmin chartplotter and fish finder for the Texas Gulf Coast angler
The ECHOMAP Ultra 126sv Garmin chartplotter
Photo: Garmin Marine
A reliable chartplotter or basic fish finder can be the difference between a pile of snapper on the deck and scraping the hull on a sandbar. Garmin’s chartplotter and fish finder products primarily run through three branches: The STRIKER series, the ECHOMAP series, and the GPSMAP series.
While it’s not the first Garmin chartplotter a 38-foot Fountain powerboat angler might look at, we include the STRIKER series as a still-reliable segment of the Garmin family. This is specifically marketed by Garmin as “perfect for small boats and kayaks.” The Garmin STRIKER 4 has been discussed as “the best bang for your buck” and solidifies its place as an “entry-level” Garmin chartplotter. The lone largemouth fisherman on a 12-foot boat in a lake alcove who is looking to burn off a $300 Christmas bonus–yeah, this is for them. The displays are generally smaller (several models are four-inch displays), the features more contained, and the price points range from $160 to around $650 for a very decent Garmin marine GPS.
Garmin’s ECHOMAP series better aligns with the boat party looking to end the day with pictures next to tuna. Pete Robbins’ review in Outdoor Life Magazine called the ECHOMAP Ultra 126sv “A foolproof entry into the world of forward-facing sonar.” We will call the ECHOMAP series “The fancy Garmin chartplotter you get when you’re ready to upgrade from your first chartplotter.” The series is further broken into two forks. The UHD2 chartplotters live in that five- to nine-inch-display range with prices under a thousand dollars, and the Ultra models include the Ultra 2, a chartplotter with a 16-inch touchscreen interface, preloaded Garmin Navionics+ (optional), Bluetooth with voice control, built-in UHD sonar (on select models), and a display designed for the “serious angler.” It simply looks good.
An ECHOMAP display will give you a completely acceptable HD display, and the more advanced GPSMAP models one-up them with 4K resolution. The GPSMAP series is expansive–you can still get a simplified seven-inch $1,200 chartplotter in the GPSMAP series. In the higher-end chartplotters, their processing speed is “up to seven times” faster, the displays run to 27 inches, and some models include video integration, so you can see yourself catch the 150-pound swordfish before throwing it on YouTube.
Key practical Garmin Marine GPS features to consider for Texas Gulf Coast fishing
The “Compress Range” view of Garmin’s LiveScope XR Sonar system.
Photo: Garmin Marine
A gravitational draw of tournament fishing is that you may find yourself in new, exciting waters that you’ve never fished before. The guy used to catching marlin in the Florida Keys might encounter the same unfamiliarity as the Corpus Christi boater, used to Port Aransas waters, who travels up to Galveston to try something different during a CCA STAR Tournament day.
Galveston is a good example, as Galveston Bay is over 600 square miles of water that rarely exceeds 10 feet in depth, and tournament anglers often catch prize-winning tagged redfish in these parts. At the same time, they may tire of the mud flats and exit into the Gulf after larger game, finding themselves quickly in a couple hundred feet of water without familiar knowledge of structure or terrain.
Garmin products carry a lot of features, and a few may more practically provide an edge for the Gulf Coast angler:
- The LiveScope Sonar. The support it offers on select Garmin chartplotter models allows anglers to see incredible live imagery with Garmin’s advanced transducers, including the way a fish reacts to a bait, how the school moves, and where the fish are suspended. In 170 feet of water, the advantage can be significant.
- Access to the Garmin ActiveCaptain community and Garmin Navionics+. Garmin Navionics+ integrates maps and charts from around the world that a user can preload and see depths, contours, and a Navionics app that allows you to access it all as you plot courses from home. The ActiveCaptain community provides an incredibly in-depth base map to view marina information, hazards, fuel, and launch access points from across the country, with points submitted by thousands of boaters.
- The Garmin Bluenet Network. Garmin describes it as an “ecosystem,” and what it does for a boat traveling with six anglers all fishing from different points of the vessel, is allow a navigator to connect multiple chartplotters, sonars, radars, and cameras all together on the same network. One transducer might point east-southeast to the school of flowing mackerel while another points south-southwest to the red snapper hovering beneath a sandbar, and all of it picks up imagery in real-time with minimal lag.
The considerations of do-it-yourself Garmin chartplotter installation
The “Connector view” of the GPSMAP 9000 Series.
Garmin Marine is apt to call itself an “ecosystem,” because once you have the retail box in your hands with a new chartplotter, its internal and external components hold a network of complexities.
Buy a GPSMAP 723, for example. It’s one of the more affordable models, and you may have a fantastically memorable experience installing your new Garmin chartplotter, or an exercise in day-off frustration. A GPSMAP 723 comes with a bail mounting kit, a flush mounting kit, connecting cables, and a protective cover. Get into a model like a GPSMAP 9022 and the pieces aren’t excessive, but the potential adapters, connectors, and mount variations can resemble a Lego box.
For the boater who loves to install their own chartplotter or fish finder, here are a few pieces to consider:
- Possibly the most important piece is spatial awareness. Your Garmin Marine GPS mounting home needs to live away from a magnetic compass, protected from extreme temperatures (AKA you can probably find better places than hanging it from the Bimini top in the sun), in a place of minimal vibrations, in an area where you can route and connect cables, with sufficient ventilation. The mount must also be able to support its weight (The GPSMAP 9022 is 17.55 pounds) over time and exist where one can easily access and view while steering.
- You’ll need to learn or grow an understanding of the network connectors and their purposes. The image above shows the connector view for the GPSMAP 9000 models. It may seem rudimentary, but it can be a learning curve to differentiate between HDMI and USB and so forth.
- The best practice is to install on land, so a dry slip or home space is optimal. You’ll need a drill and drill bits, marine sealant, a #2 screwdriver, a file or sandpaper, and a jigsaw or rotary tool.
If all that sounds fun, all that’s left is to buy your favorite beer and get after it.
Utilizing the convenience and expertise of Marina Bay Harbor Marina for your Garmin Marine GPS installation
Deciding to buy a Garmin chartplotter or fish finder is an adventure in itself. You might spend a month’s pay on a fishing accessory, and want to feel good about it for a long time.
Marina Bay Harbor Marina in Clear Lake Shores, Texas is an officially authorized reseller of Garmin Marine products. We are home to the Marina Bay Harbor Service Center, the premier Texas destination for boat maintenance, repair, and upgrades. Our retail store holds a wide selection of Garmin Marine GPS products, and our team has a wealth of experience in choosing a chartplotter, using one effectively, and expertly installing your chartplotter to provide a secure and aesthetically sound home for your accessory. Your boat will be launch-ready, with a new set of eyes and ears for finding fish.
Give us a call at 281-535-2222 to explore a new Garmin chartplotter purchase, or fill out our convenient service request form online to schedule a Garmin Marine GPS installation.