Depth sounder in the bow?

I can guess at with 2 answers;
Clean, smooth water is not usually available at the bow for the transducer to operate well.
The expense and complication for a transducer switch is above most operators wits.

With that explained. You can add and fair in a forward transducer. Either a selection switch or a new sounder can be installed. I have witnessed it installed both ways. AND it will never be reliable.

It's up to you if the need vs complication & bux are warranted.

A transducer will never get a signal on the bow, unless you are in calm water and at idle speed. Too much up and down motion and wash for it to work. By the time you see shallow water on your depth finder while underway at anything more than 6 knots and you're going to be sitting on top of it anyways.

If you know how to Navigate then you should never run out of water in front of you! And if you're going that slow, stick someone out on the bow with a lead line taking soundings.

I see you didn't cruise the ICW in the Carolinas this Spring. The only boater who hasn't run aground is the one who owns a dock queen. But as you point out, it's knowing how to read the water and cruising at an appropriate speed that matters.

To the OP, you can get forward facing sonar. The transducer is back in the clean water, but it looks forward.

I took a 50' yacht to Myrtle Beach in January from Ft. Laud and the ICW the entire way. Georgia is far worse than the Carolina's. In jekyll island it is 1.5' in the middle of the channel at low tide.....mud river isn't far behind in depth....run on the mid to high tide. Also doing 4 knots on the ICW isn't really feasible if you're trying to get somewhere.

Well in those kinds of depths forward facing sonar isn't a solution either. And it has been explained already why no boats have transducers in the bow. Besides even at eight knots in say a 60 footer, what do you gain in reaction time, a second?

We fitted a forward looking sounder.

Not too expensive and worked well. Mounted about 5ft from the bow (so it was always in good water) and slightly off center so the centerline of the keel/cutwater was there to protected it.

Can't remember what brand but similar to this.

EchoPilot - 3d Forward Looking Sonar

As others have said, you want the transducer in the smoothest, least turbulent water possible. Also the least amount of deadrise. Two things not happening at the bow where the boat is breaking the water. And fuggedabout it altogether on a planing boat. You can consult Airmar, who makes virtually all transducers, if you'd like to go right to the source. And to repeat, what is that second or two really buying you even if it could be made to be accurate and reliable? Again, there is a reason, really, why you never see it done.

The issue with forward scanners, which comes closest to solving your problem, is they too want to be installed midships or further back, and a have an effective scanning range of as little as eight to as much as 20 times the depth . see the link posted above. Do the math for a sixty footish yacht in ana area with, say, six to to 12 foot depths. Great for detecting rocks and sea mounts in deep water though.

Saltysenior

So your the one that causes the 20 boat backup in the ICW. 2Knots? You finally gave the forum some "facts". I'm sure you're getting through to all of us. If you want a hummingbird up front, just install one! All it takes is some fiberglass inside the hull for the transducer. Don't forget to glass it parallel to the apparent waterline. IMHO, too many folks present a problem for discussion and then yell at us for our comments. No thank you. And BTW - a hummingbird?

Taking lead line readings at the BOW would give you the most reaction time. A transducer will not work there for reasons everyone stated unless you want to put one on a removable pole that you deploy when going 2 knots. Your best bet would be to have a tender with both a chartplotter and depth finder and follow 100-200 yards behind the tender at 5 knots.......

Personally I wouldn't take a 6 1/2' draft into 7' waters unless I absolutely had to. And, if I did it wouldn't be very far......I would avoid it if in any way, shape, or form I could.

I can not understand why you want to continue to beat an old dog.

We feel you have been answered.

If you have a better idea, don't roll your eyes, roll your asp in your hull, install a depth sounder and prove us wrong.

Your 6.5 foot draft in the Stewart area further proves that you must roll your eyes backward often and probably blame some other old dog.

Except in rocky areas you almost always get warning of shallows. Granted it may only be a second or two but it's there. When in a questionable area one eye never leaves the depth finder. Before seeing 5' you'll generally see 10, 9, 8... Remember also that if going slow it doesn't batter much if your bow plows into sand. It's the props you're protecting. Also, the color or transparency of the water is only one tell tale. There's also the texture. If you have good water in the the crinkle stay out of the glassy and visa-versa. Another telltale is the shoreline. What happens there continues under the water. A point on land will continue with a sandbar. The inside of a bend tends to shoal more than the outside, etc.

I wouldn't trust a Hummingbird to protect me from that 6" clearance. Don't have a solution when that close except to go slow as Sonar is great for objects and general slope but if you go into an area with that small a margin of error you're going to get some bottom along the way.

I also don't know your trick to going 2 mph or 1.7 knots. Neutral? In and out of gear?

It can work and I have been on several boats with transducers in the bow. In fact it a couple of Browards I ran had them.

I found them handy for poking around in the shallows at very slow speeds. And since they only work well up there at slow speeds you just have a second sounder on board with a second transducer mounted in a more traditional location.

Yes, obviously in really shallow waters you go in and out of gear, sometimes one engine at a time if needed

Strategy depends on the boat and the conditions. A 6" clearance is doable if you are absolutely sure the sounder is working accurately.

I ve had to poke our 6 1/4 draft thru shallow spots on the more often than I wanted too. I remember one time at new river NC arriving a little earlier th a planned and having to back out three times before I found more than 7' depths not h north side of ICW/inlet intersection. And that was at night... The plotter told the story with two parallel lines dead ending, 30' apart and then the third one going thru...

And yes the tender can be a great tool. I have use that many times especially in the exumas to check out some skinny runs on the bank side. I usually prefer to run the tender first with the sounder and a portable GPS (or iPhone with the garmin app) so I can find th deeper water. In most case you can read the water but when it gets a little close, 7' and 8' are not always easy to differentiate and I'd rather run the boat in 8' than 7'

Back to the original question, at dead slow speed, there is no reason an xducer mounted forward woudl not work if installed on a block to make sure it shoots straight down,