Which Garmin 'ducer so I can see hard/soft bottom before I drop the hook?

[Jeff on Aurora]

Good morning all,
I just purchased a new Garmin MFD with built-in sonar capability. I'd like to add a transducer so I get a sonar picture and (hopefully) be able to judge from the echo/return if there's a hard rock/coral/hardpan bottom with no mud or sand for the anchor to grab. (In one recent example, it took me four tries at Mile Zero / Hospital Point to find a spot where the anchor wasn't just bouncing along on a hard bottom.)


As someone who doesn't fish, Garmin's offerings are confusing to me. They have "Traditional", "Chirp", "ClearVu", "SideVu" options. I'd like to keep this purchase under $400 or so.

My requirements:
- be able to judge the bottom density
- don't care about finding fish
- might be nice to see snags with some kind of "side scan" technology if not too $$$




What have you used that worked?



Thanks in advance,
Jeff