What's the most underutilized piece of equipment on most Indiana anglers boats?
Certainly not the trolling motor, or the bilge pump. Not the built-in coolers or the running lights, and everybody definitely uses and is concerned about their temperature gauges. You could make an argument for either the livewells or the fire extinguisher (LOL-just kidding), but that's going a little far. I'm referring to electronics, in particular your depth finders. Everybody has them, most guys turn them on, but not many guys ever learn how to truly use them. I spent time on the water with some good sticks running high dollar units watching animated fishes go swimming by on their screen...Honest.
I partly blame this on the type of waters most of us fish, that being shallow and turbid reservoirs and rivers. These type waters lend themselves to a pretty decent shallow water bite, and Indiana has some pretty good shallow water specialists. A good majority of our anglers are sight fishermen. By that, I mean that they are fishing water that can be read visually, throwing to visible cover and shallow water objects. Laydowns, docks, emergent weeds, riprap, standing timber. Some guys are good and some guys get lucky. You know who's who by following the names at the top of the standings in the state tournies. I always tell guys to start at the bottom of the tourney results list, where all the blanks reside, and then work your way up the list; not the reverse. You get a different (but very interesting) picture that way rather than just focusing on who won or who cashed a check.
So after 5 years with my current electronics set-up on my Triton, I finally switched out and upgraded both the front and console units. On the bow I installed an Eagle FishMark 320. This replaced an older and much simpler FishEasy unit. Many guys snicker when they saw that Fish Easy unit on the bow, but the old style 600 watt units were/are the best shallow water reading machines on the water. Anyone who tells you otherwise is someone who isn't catching near the numbers of bass they could be around here. Their only shortcoming was their resolution, that being the limited number of vertical pixels they operated with. So this unit is a compromise. Great resolution for not only shallow water but also mid- and deep water reading. Good power but not overpowering. These two attributes combined now let me watch baits bouncing in fish faces while still giving me the shallow water discrimination I desire.
On the console I put a new Lowrance LCX-15MT with GPS. This unit replaces a Lowrance X-70A that I ran going back to the mid-90's. Once you get used to the wide screen units (7" and above) it's hard to ever go back to the smaller screens. This is especially true on GPS capable units where you are typically running split screens with mapping functions on one side and graphing functions on the other. Power remains the same at 3,000 watts but resolution goes well up from the old 200 vertical pixel units (X-70's).
Two other quick thoughts on electronics. First, if you can afford a color unit they truly are the best things going for those learning or wanting to utilize their depth finders to the max. It simply comes down to making the visual interpretation so much easier to understand (a joint operation between your brain and your eyes). In my case, I've used the old monochrome units so much and have set up enough color units for people that I interpret things as if in color even though they aren't. It's similar to visualizing what's showing on your screen in 3-dimensions, even though the picture is only two, and an absolutely critical way of 'thinking' (actually visualizing) if you want to be good at understanding what your units are telling you.
The second point; unless you fish salt-water, the Great Lakes, troll with downriggers or spend a lot of time searching open water for schooling fish species, there is absolutely no need to purchase a dual frequency unit. You are actually hurting your all around performance by having one. Any bass fisherman who tells you otherwise is either trying to justify having spent the extra money for the DF unit or proud of the 'deal' he must have got. In either case he doesn't understand the short-comings of the DF units. This is slowly going to change though as manufacturers alter the packaged frequencies placed into these units from the standard 50/200 kHz arrangement.