Inks is much safer and easier to boat in a smaller aluminum boat. Buchanan can get dangerous when the wind starts blowing >10 mph. Would recommend inks over Buchanan for safety reasons.
I installed my transducer on the starboard side of the Jon boat and made sure the transducer was completely leveled with the bottom of the Jon boat. I didn't really do anything special with the settings most settings were set to auto and I was just using a split page so I could see both 2d broadband sonar and downscale at the same time. For 2d broadband I would keep mine at around 200 khz, Sidescan I would generally use the 455khz setting. For the maps I bought a cheap fishing hotspots map card from eBay it was less than $50. The fish finder is actuallly a very capable unit and It has worked very well for me in the years I have owned it. ( I just recently upgraded to a newer Garmin unit but I still really like the Lowrance one I had)
