Humminbird 197c on a canoe...where to even start?

[Neil McCauley]

The youtube videos on this are horrible. Really. And everything kayak-based, anyway. Googling only leads me to humminbird's site, which is not helpful.

Anyone familiar with this very basic fishfinder and how it could be set up on a canoe? Pretty sure it is going to have to be custom but I am not even sure how to approach this.

Ideally I'd like to have the transducer on the trolling motor on my canoe, or on a side mount attached to the gunwall of the canoe.

[Wayne P.]

It is quite basic. The transducer has to have water contact either directly or shooting through the hull.. You need a 12V power source.

The transducer can be attached to the bottom of a trolling motor, quite a common application. There is a Humminbird accessory trolling motor mount bracket, and a third party mount by Transducer Shield  and Saver.

Or you can exchange the transom transducer for the trolling motor PUCK version--

XTM 9 20 T

 

I would recommend the Transducer Shield for protection, you will break the transducer at some point without one. That is highly likely with a canoe application.

[Neil McCauley]

On 12/25/2015 at 5:59 AM, Wayne P. said:

It is quite basic. The transducer has to have water contact either directly or shooting through the hull.. You need a 12V power source.

The transducer can be attached to the bottom of a trolling motor, quite a common application. There is a Humminbird accessory trolling motor mount bracket, and a third party mount by Transducer Shield  and Saver.

Or you can exchange the transom transducer for the trolling motor PUCK version--

XTM 9 20 T

 

I would recommend the Transducer Shield for protection, you will break the transducer at some point without one. That is highly likely with a canoe application.

Thanks for your help. Do you know if the tm-mounted transducer method have a drawback in terms of accuracy/function of the sonar? And what is usually the issue that gets a transducer broken, hitting rocks/objects in the water?

 

[Wayne P.]

A shoot-thru, transom mounted, and trolling motor puck have the exact same 2D frequency crystal so they work exactly the same.

Just mounting style is different.

Hitting the bottom or objects breaks the transducer. The Transducer Shield and Saver will pretty much prevent that since it is metal and encloses the transducer. There is a model that fits a transom transducer and a trolling motor puck. Bass Pro has them in their catalog and marine electronics dealers carry them.

[carlm01]

Neil I have that unit on my inflatable pontoon , Before that I had a helix 5 here's how I had it set up to be completely detachable