Chirp sonar

[Bad Habit]

Is there any advantage to trolling deeper water using CHIRP, or should I stick to traditional sonar? I've read conflicting views and thought I could get opinions from people that have used both. 

[Earl28]

I have both, tranditional b60, chirp gt51 and panoptics ps30. I prefer CHIRP traditional sonar, CHIRP ClearVü, CHIRP SideVü and panoptics.

[spoonfed-1]

On 9/18/2025 at 7:07 AM, Bad Habit said:

Is there any advantage to trolling deeper water using CHIRP, or should I stick to traditional sonar? I've read conflicting views and thought I could get opinions from people that have used both. 

I found traditional sonar works better for me but I'm now fishing small ponds that are typically 40-60 fow max depth.

[Yankee Troller]

If all you do is open water troll Lake Ontario I believe traditional sonar using the 50khz is the best option. That being said I have been running the Airmar TM165HW Chirp transducer on my Smokercraft and I've been very happy with it. This chirp transducer has a 30 degree cone, which is one of the larger cones in the chirp world. Best bang for the buck is still traditional sonar.

[dickey]

Rick,

Do you think the Airmar TM165HW is better than the P66 for trolling on a Starcraft Fishmaster 196 with Helix FF? 
 

[Yankee Troller]

1 minute ago, dickey said:

Rick,

Do you think the Airmar TM165HW is better than the P66 for trolling on a Starcraft Fishmaster 196 with Helix FF? 
 

 

If you have a P66 I wouldn't run out and by a TM165HW. The P66 is still VERY good if all you do is fish open water great lakes. If you stray inland like I do with Oneida, and target bottom hugging fish like Walleye can be, the chirp definitely can give you a slight advantage.

[Yankee Troller]

Here's a screenshot from the TM165HW on Lake Erie back in August.

 

[bluegiller]

10 hours ago, Yankee Troller said:

 

If you have a P66 I wouldn't run out and by a TM165HW. The P66 is still VERY good if all you do is fish open water great lakes. If you stray inland like I do with Oneida, and target bottom hugging fish like Walleye can be, the chirp definitely can give you a slight advantage.

I agree with Rick on his suggestion I got a p66 and it is perfect for trolling and I was impressed last week I used it perch fishing and it did a pretty good job of picking them up even when they were pretty tight to the bottom. I was a little worried about not having chirp but the p66 did just fine for me . I had to do a little adjusting to switch from trolling to perch fishing but it did a nice job for sure. Way way better than the original transducer that came with my unit. Again thank you Rick for your help with it. 

 

[Yankee Troller]

Starting to really like this Humminbird Xplore/Airmar TM165HW set-up.

 

Here's me marking fish at 33mph. These were Walleye on Oneida Lake

 

This was marking bait at 33mph

 

Fish hugging bottom and a small pile of bait