fish finders

am in the market for f.f.    Are you happy with what you have? what is it? and are you shooting thru the hull? thanks in advance.

Eagle Cuda 250? The one without the GPS. Shoots through the hull. Love it! Pretty straightforward operation. Too many options means too many things that could possibly go wrong just might.

Fred "True" Trujillo

Hummingbird 383ci, 365i, and 597ci hd di. All through the hull, and I like all 3. Only reason I have 3 is I bought the 365, the 383 came with a used boat I bought, then I destroyed the 383 on a bad surf landing so I had an excuse to upgrade.

I have a Hummingbird 196ci gps combo. For $200 it's alright. It isn't amazing but it helps me find structure and it's cool to know how fast I'm going. Maybe my marine goop job on the 'ducer was shotty, it seems to give weird readings sometimes. I experience sudden drops or peaks in height when I shouldn't.
I'm going to upgrade to the Lowrance Elite 5 HDI. That thing is the tits. You can view traditional sonar, side scan imaging and chart plotter all at the same time with a three way screen split. It's super cool.
My 2014 revo comes with the Lowrance ready plate so I won't need to shoot through the hull. The transducers will be under water which will be exciting for more accurate water temps. My hummingbird always says it's 99 degrees. I wish!

A couple of suggestions:

1. Go to an outdoor store and look at the displays on the fish finders.  Think about how big of a display you want.  I don't like screens which are too small, but some screens seem a bit humongous for a kayak.  And think about whether you can live with black and white, or want color.  I've owned both, and prefer color.

2.  All fish finders will have basic sonar.  Some fish finders also provide GPS, down-imaging sonar (which provides a semi-photographic picture of vegetation, fish, objects, and bottom structure of objects you are passing), and/or side scan sonar (which provides a picture of vegetation, fish, objects, and bottom structure you are passing further out than down-imaging sonar).  Talk your friends into letting you try out their kayaks, and have them help you try out the different features of their fish finders to get a better feel for the information which those features provide.  I find GPS extremely useful.  For the kind of fishing I do, I haven't been finding down-imaging sonar very helpful, but can see how it would be useful for other kinds of fishing.  I haven't tried side imaging sonar, but it would be nice to know if there are fish off to the side of my kayak.

3. Many people find that mounting their fish finder transducer inside the hull of their kayak results in deterioration of the performance of the fish finder, so if you can figure out a way to mount the transducer so it is in contact with the water, it'll probably work better.  On my 13' Trident I mounted the transducer in the scupper hole pocket, which works well, and mostly protects the transducer from abuse.  On my 13' Revolution I mounted the transducer in the covered transducer pocket, which works really well, and completely protects the transducer.  A transducer arm will keep your transducer in the water, but may get in the way, need to be pulled up every time you beach your kayak, and need to be removed every time you transport your kayak.  On the other hand, a transducer arm may be a good way to produce a fish finder setup which can easily be moved from one kayak to another.

4.  You'll need to decide how much money to blow on a fish finder.  I have a Humminbird 325 on my Trident.  It's a sonar-only black-and-white unit which works pretty well.  I have a Humminbird 597ciHD on my Revolution.  It has sonar, GPS, down imaging sonar, and a color screen.  I really like it, although side scan sonar might have been a better choice than down imaging sonar for the kinds of fishing I do.

5.  Don't mount the fish finder too far away.  It'll be harder to see the screen, and you may not take full advantage of the features of the fish finder if the controls are hard to reach.  On my Trident, the unit is mounted in the covered pocket in front of my feet.  It's a bit hard for me to read the screen that far away, and I need to slide forward in my seat and lean way forward to punch the buttons.  On my Revolution, the unit is mounted on a rail a few inches in front of my knee, where it's real easy to see the screen and punch the buttons.

I have the Elite 5 dsi and I like it. You can get them pretty cheap right now since they came out with the Elite 5 hdi. The hdi has the regular sonar along with the downscan. The dsi only has downscan which I have heard doesnt mark fish as well, but it seems to work ok for me.  I have it shooting through the hull now, but I am about to get a 2014 hobie with the built in transducer mount, so I will see if I notice any difference.

Eagle Cuda 250 with GPS. Shooting through the hull. Works great, seems to be accurate marking fish and structures. Stole it off my PB That tells you how much I use my PB since I got my outback.....NEVER!

Finally upgrading? Good you can tell me where the big kings are at on the klick this year.

Dielectric grease on connectors solved some of my ff issues.  I have a simple one, but it does what I need.

I have an Elite 7xHDI (no GPS, ~$449) on my PA12, not shooting through the hull, love this sonar, wide screen with great resolution (800x480) allows me to display 2 frequencies side-by-side...

Humminbird 788ci (FF & GPS). Now discontinued, but love it. Nice big color screen. Shooting through the hull I get a good return down to over 500 feet.

Like Merz, I've got the Elite 5 DSI. Nice screen size and good image. I've got my transducer in the Lowrance pocket. Kind of wish I had waited for the HDI version to come out.

Like Merz, I've got the Elite 5 DSI. Nice screen size and good image. I've got my transducer in the Lowrance pocket. Kind of wish I had waited for the HDI version to come out.

I was originally in the market for the HDI 5, but did not want to wait.  The sales man talked me into the HDI 7.  With the 7 I have a little more screen when I use the three panels in split-screen mode.  Being able to use the Broadband and DownScan Imaging together cannot be beat. Love my HDI 7. 

I have been waiting for the elite 4 hdi. Every time I check the release date keeps pushing back. 4.3" screen, dsi,  broadband sonar, and GPS for $300. Expected release is now march 8th or something.

+1 on the Elite-4 DSI...plan to rotate my elite-4 to my second boat which currently has a Mark-4 and pick up the Elite-4 DSI for my primary boat. It took me quite a while to tune and learn to use these 4-series units, but now that I have them dialed in I'm realizing their full potential...hate to have to learn a new piece of equipment.