Best kayak fishfinder ?

[Ksam1234]

Looking to get a good fishfinder for my kayak when it comes in. I want something good enough to be able to use in shallow water though without the equipment giving false readings and all that weird junk. I fish in shallower lakes from 2-10 feet. 2-30 ft. And one goes down to 50 feet. I usually fish the shallow area but would like to start venturing into deeper water or help find fish when it’s super cold, I don’t want to spend 1000$ but I’m all ears for what everyone has to offer

[flyfisher]

Fish finder for a kayak is no different than any other vessel.  The only caveat being how large of a screen you want to have on your boat and the transducer and how you will mount it.  That being said I feel that for kayaks side imaging is a must, especially in shallow water as it allows you to see what's around you without paddling over everything.  I personally have a helix 5SI but i wish i got the bigger screen.  So my advice is figure out what features you want, mapping, side imaging, auto charting etc...then look to see ant is out there and in your budget.  Another big factor is usability.  Go play with them in a store and see how they all work and if you feel comfortable using them and if it makes sense to you.  

How large and how you will mount the transducer will also be a factor.  Lots of people use the arms over the side, I personally don't like them which is a big reason why I bought the kayak I have now since it has an electronics pod in the center of the boat.

There are a lot of good options out there for sure.  

[Tracker22]

What flyfisher said. I’ve got a seven inch screen which I believe is perfect for a yak. Another consideration is power draw. Anything over seven pulls a lot of amps. The large transducers can be difficult to mount other than using a arm, which collects weeds if your around coontail or pads.

[Dieselguy416]

I went with the 9" echomap plus but I think a 7 would be sufficient. 

[Ksam1234]

Thanks. Ihave never used a fish finder so I’ll hahe to go to a local

store and play with them 

[Fairtax4me]

For me a “fish finder” is less useful than knowing water temp and depth. Even the best “fish finder” won’t tell you anything if you have no idea of where to look in the first place. Water temp and depth are really the only reason I have sonar on my kayak. $100 for a 4” Lowrance unit and a $30 ES4L battery that will run the unit all day long (12 hours +) and not go below 50% charge level. Especially on a small body of water, water temp is going to primarily tell me where the fish are, or at least, should be. 

 

If you’re fishing large bodies of water GPS is useful. 

Side scan is nice but hardly required. 

Sonar doesn’t typically work well in water that’s less than maybe a foot and a half, but if you need to fish shallower than that, you don’t need sonar anyway. Almost all units will work fine in depths of 2 feet down to whatever they’re rated to, unless you have something made for offshore that needs to read 1,000+ feet deep. You’re probably not putting that size unit on a kayak. You would need a 75lb battery to run it for more than a few minutes. 

 

If you’ve never used a sonar unit before, all the different settings will drive you nuts. Ultimately it comes down to what you want on your yak, and what your budget is. The bigger the unit, the higher the price tag. But IMO that’s a lot of fluff for fishing primarily shallow water, where simply reading the water should tell you where you need to fish. 

[MDbassin]

I am using a lowrance hook2 7 triple shot. I'm in the process of upgrading to a 9 inch screen and higher quality unit. Just cant decided between helix 9 or elite ti2 9 lol

[Ksam1234]

I think I found a good one a lowrance for 599$ it has side and down imaging and seems to be good for. E price.  

[J Francho]

I run either a Helix 5 or Helix 7.  Both are SI/DI and Lakemaster chips.  Really, the 5 is plenty big.  You're really close to the screen, and most often I'm split with either CHIRP/DI or CHIRP/GPS.  For SI, I'm usually full screen, mostly scanning toward shore.

[Ksam1234]

Yeah that’s the one I was looking at! I think it’s like 599$

[J Francho]

Sounds about what I paid.  Does a lot for that price.

[RLinNH]

On 4/14/2019 at 11:38 PM, Fairtax4me said:

For me a “fish finder” is less useful than knowing water temp and depth. Even the best “fish finder” won’t tell you anything if you have no idea of where to look in the first place. Water temp and depth are really the only reason I have sonar on my kayak. $100 for a 4” Lowrance unit and a $30 ES4L battery that will run the unit all day long (12 hours +) and not go below 50% charge level. Especially on a small body of water, water temp is going to primarily tell me where the fish are, or at least, should be. 

 

If you’re fishing large bodies of water GPS is useful. 

Side scan is nice but hardly required. 

Sonar doesn’t typically work well in water that’s less than maybe a foot and a half, but if you need to fish shallower than that, you don’t need sonar anyway. Almost all units will work fine in depths of 2 feet down to whatever they’re rated to, unless you have something made for offshore that needs to read 1,000+ feet deep. You’re probably not putting that size unit on a kayak. You would need a 75lb battery to run it for more than a few minutes. 

 

If you’ve never used a sonar unit before, all the different settings will drive you nuts. Ultimately it comes down to what you want on your yak, and what your budget is. The bigger the unit, the higher the price tag. But IMO that’s a lot of fluff for fishing primarily shallow water, where simply reading the water should tell you where you need to fish. 

     What he said. I've owned 2 boats in my life and both of them had Fish Finders on them. All I cared about on those fish finders were the water depth and water temp. I never took enough time to figure out how to read the fish finders. The only beep I cared about was the low water alarm. Bear in mind, today's finders have A LOT MORE bells and whistles than the units of 10 years ago. Good thread here. Really puts me back into my lane as far as looking for a fish finder for my Kayak. 👍

[Koz]

On my kayak I started out with a Lowrance Hook2 5" with the tripleshot transducer (down scan and side scan). It worked great, but ultimately I found the screen to be too small, especially trying to read the side scan. Using split screen or multiple windows made the unit even harder to read.

 

So then I upgraded to a Helix 7 with downscan and side imaging and it's a HUGE improvement. I know some folks mentioned that they don't see the need for side scan, but I disagree.

 

Unless you have a huge screen, side scan isn't all that great for finding fish. But what it is great for is finding structure, especially when you are fishing 10-30 feet deep. 

 

Now that I upgraded my kayak to an Old Town Autopilot I'm thinking of buying a 9" to use with live targeting. If I had to do it all over again, I would have bought the 9" unit in the first place even though it would have been a pain to mount on my old pedal drive kayak.

 

Whatever you do, before you buy any unit run through the mounting options for both the head unit and the transducer. I used the YakAttack Switchblade over the rail transducer arm and the YakAttack Cellblok. Consider weight and placement, especially if everything is going on the rail.

 

The Switchblade and head unit were all mounted to the Cellblok and sat on the rail. While that worked well, I now prefer to have the transducer mounted underneath the kayak and the battery stowed. It's easier to fish without a ton of stuff on the rail.

 

Lastly, try and think of what you might want a year or two from now. You may not want detailed maps now, but consider you might want them later and make sure your unit can do that. Or maybe you want a trolling motor down the road. You might want that integrated with your unit.

 

 

[RLinNH]

1. My Kayak is an older Hobie PA14. I would like to install the transducer into the transducer area on the hull, but I'm thinking that side imaging won't work what with the transducer being stuffed into the hull. Also, I DO NOT want the transducer just hanging out on the hull. I know for a fact that I'll damage it. So it's really looking like an "Over the Side" of the kayak type of transducer mount. Also, for some reason, I am gravitating towards Garmin. Don't know why, but I am. Still researching. Hummingbird holds a very close 2nd in my book...

[Fishingmickey]

I'm running a PA14 and I have a Garmin 93sv UHD with Live Scope. The two transducers are on my right side on Ram ball mounts. I can deploy the as needed.  The sonar transducer uses a ram mount ball on the H rail. The live scope is a 1.5" ball flush mounted on the plastic plate. Batteries are under the seat. Yes, I run two batteries. The head unit is on a 17ah FPV battery and the live scope battery is a Dakota lithium 23ah.

     I've been running this set up for about three years.

FM

[RLinNH]

Is the 93sv the 7" or the 9" model? I just feel like the 9" model is overkill for my kayak. Then again, I am green when it comes to fish finders. So what the hell do I know? Also, which transducer are you running? I noticed earlier on Garmin's site that the transducer is not included with the head unit.

[MN Fisher]

7 minutes ago, RLinNH said:

Is the 93sv the 7" or the 9" model?

First number is the size - so it's a 9".

Second number is the region the maps cover - 3 is US Inland waters.

[RLinNH]

1 hour ago, MN Fisher said:

First number is the size - so it's a 9".

Second number is the region the maps cover - 3 is US Inland waters.

Thank You for the explanation sir. Much Appreciated.👍

[DogBone_384]

I have a Lowrance Elite 7” with a side-scan transducer mounted on a RAM mount on my Lure 11.5. It’s perfect.