Good Fish Finder for a Fishing Kayak

[Fishing_FL_WI_Will]

Can anyone recommend a good fish finder for a kayak?  Thank you 

[12poundbass]

I’ve had pretty good luck with Garmin. If you want mapping I’d go with the Echomap series. If you don’t need mapping you can’t go wrong with the Striker series of Garmin. Garmin in my opinion will get you the most bang for your buck.

 

At the end of the day you really can’t go wrong with any of the big three.

[Fishing_FL_WI_Will]

Thank you 

[casts_by_fly]

What do you want to achieve with it and how much is your budget?  What type of water do you fish?  I’ve seen everything from a little piranha unit up to a pair of solix 12s on a kayak. 
 

for me, I fish a lot of natural lakes with a lot of grass and moderate depths plus a few man made reservoirs with less grass and a bit more depth. I use side imaging a lot when motoring between spots. I’ll occasionally use down and 2d if I want to go back over something. I have had mega live for a year and that’s what’s on display while I’m casting. 
 

I use humminbird.  I think they have the best imaging quality for non live imaging. I started with a 7” helix. If you’re using side imaging but not splitting the screen for side and down or nav then 7” is a good size. In humminbird, it’s a big jump from 7” to 8” in both screen size, weight, and the bigger transducer. I don’t think they offer an 8” SI unit right now. I upgraded to a 9” a year ago when I put live imaging in and that’s a big unit. For side imaging you get a heck of a picture with it. On a kayak I think 9” is the practical upper limit unless you’re really going for something specific. 

[Glenn]

 

[Brian11719]

I'm really happy with my Hummingbird Helix 5. I've got it on the Helix mount from YakAttack and if you happen to have old town there's an adapter you can buy so it fits right on the bottom. I didn't even need to drill into my kayak and have been using it for about a year now. 

[Smirak]

I ran a striker 4 last year. This year I upgraded to a hook reveal 9. My eyes thank me. 

[Zcoker]

For simple no frills operation with mapping, I have the Garmin Striker Vivid CV. Great little unit, light weight, compact, easily readable, doesn't get in the way.  I use mine out in the everglades. It only really comes on just to get a temp reading. So my recommendation may not be the best for big lakes and so froth. The mapping feature as well as the depth and temp reading are the only things I ever use on it. Fish finding is left up to me! 

[FishTank]

I have been happy with my Lowrance HDS Live 7 but I wish I would have bought the 9in after seeing it on someone else's kayak.  The bigger screen makes a difference.  

[FishTax]

I put a Humminbird Helix 7 mega side imaging on my kayak in Dec. My initial observations of that unit:

 

- Image is great, and I like the screen size

- It's pretty big, seems to get loose on the rail (maybe a mount issue so not knocking the helix) and also I hit it sometimes with my rod, but I still have the wires loose because I'm not ready to commit to the location yet. I think this is key not to commit to a permanent install until you test it with your fishing style so you avoid cutting holes unnecessarily and lots of additional work

 

- mapping, if you want maps look online to see if your local body of water is covered by the base map of the unit you're considering. if not, you'll need to buy a card which is additional expense.

- custom mapping - garmin can write to a regular SD card per my understanding, which is super affordable. Humminbird requires you to buy 'autolines' card, which is an extra $100. I find this annoying, and decided not to do custom mapping but instead just get a map card which covers the main bodies of water I fish. 

- watch for sales. All of the big 3 are regularly on sale at major retailers. Also watch facebook marketplace if you're willing to roll the dice on used, but the biggest risk is probably a busted transducer so I"m not sure I'd want to go that route. 

 

I started with a simple $100 2D lowrance, and that was very helpful to learn 2D and water temp, etc. I think you can get a lot of value from an inexpensive unit, but it just depends on how you fish, body of water, etc. It'd also be fun to have FFS on the other end of the spectrum... 

[Koz]

With a kayak there are always trade offs. Size is a consideration from having something big that may interfere with your fishing to something small that is hard to read, especially as you age.

 

I started with a 5” Lowrance with down imaging and side imaging but it was hard on my old eyes. I bought it cheap from the Lowrance site as it was a reconditioned unit.

 

I next bought a Helix 7 Mega DI SI and on my Seastream kayak it was next to my seat and out of the way. But when I bought an Autopilot it was in the way.

 

In the meantime, I decided to get an FFS  unit and bought a Garmin Livescope with a 9” head unit. This definitely got in the way so I made a DIY console mount. If I want to do so on the future I can put it side by side with the Helix.

 

Put some thought into what you might want in two years and buy that one. And make sure it doesn’t get in the way of fishing.

 

[Mossman]

I have a Lowrance Hook Reveal 7 with the tripleshot transducer (down and side imaging). I put this on my Old Town Sportsman 106 PDL. I do not recommend this combo, the transducer is huge and doesn’t fit well in the 106. Allegedly it fits well on the 120, but I am not sure.