Garmin Striker 4dv & Scotty Orca mount on Outback

I didn't notice the holes in your cover plate till skidplate pointed it out. Thats why I don't use my downscan. My eyes aren't good enough to see the fish returns, which in 100ft of water are like minute grains of rice. Haha. Did the plate come that way or did you mod' it? Is it effective in flushing out any debris that may get in there?

My Outback has a registration number ending in 616 which I suspect was June 2016 mfg date. And yes, the vent slots were part of the plate manufacture. I think someone must have realized the potential problem with muck and sand accumulation in the sonar well and added the holes as a way to hopefully purge any accumulating gunk. The holes are irregular in shape giving indication that their function is to "scoop" water while moving rather than just drain holes when pulling the boat out of the water. It also might purge any air bubbles to prevent irregular signal transmission and reception but the drain scupper to the surface should prevent air from accumulating.   As far as effectiveness I can't say from the short time I've had it. But they sure can't hurt.

I would guess that Hobie can provide the "new & improved" plate for a modest upgrade fee for those with the Lowrance ready configuration. I applaud Hobie for incorporating that thru-hull transducer feature. Never gets in the way to tangle fishing line, or get whacked by under water objectives or the beach when launching and landing, or require one more piece of gear on the hull surface to congest the operator's area.

Agree the DownVu feature does seem to have limitations unless you are running a $50,000 side scanning, treasure-hunting sonar looking for sunken ships. But it does make weed beds and sunken trees look like their true identity which could help in at least locating fish holding structure, then switch to std sonar. My Lowrance X-15B paper graph on my Bayliner has such high resolution (1.5 inch target separation at 1500 feet) that I used it for spotting Dungeness crab on the flat muddy bottom of Kbay in the 80's to drop my rings in the best spots. Can't expect this $180 Garmin to produce like that but I'll find out over time. Too bad our dungies are wiped out and have never recovered for harvesting.

That's strange. My reg# ends in 616 but no cutouts. Maybe you got lucky but I would like one of those too.