Portable fish finder

[dizzyfish]

Can anyone advise me on buying a portable fish finder ? Primarily for use whilst trout fishing - but I also have a small rowing boat which I use for river pike fishing and estuary sea fishing - so I would like to be able to use it there also.

 

Main considerations are :-

 

Battery type/life,

Tranducer type - suction cup or I have seen some which are mounted on the end of a pole type thing which is attached to the side of the boat,

side sweep/dual frequency

 

Many thanks.

[Newt]

Hi dizzyfish and welcome to AnglersNet.

 

Try clicking on the 'search' link near the top of the page and search on the Coarse section for the past year using 'fishfinder' as your search word. There are at least a dozen good discussions on this topic. They will give you some background information that should help.

 

Meanwhile, I'm moving your topic to the coarse section from Fly Fishing because it is much more active and the same sort of devices are used by coarse anglers and game anglers.

[Mark Crame]

I'd suggest looking on the kayak fishing forum, a couple of threads running at the moment on the topic. I'm in the market myself - and most of the guys have them.

[Steve Burke]

In another life I used to sell fishfinders. This included doing comparative field tests of up to 4 models from different makers at once. In fact these were possibly the only such tests done in the UK.

 

Now I'm retired I can no longer give you any specific advice on the best model, but I can point you in the right direction.

 

Firstly for trout fishing I agree that a sidescanner is invaluable if you want to find fish or even just the depth they're laying at as opposed to feature finding. In fact, for this purpose I wouldn't consider any fishfinder without this facility. This is because a boat going over trout will often spook them, and a sidescanner will have much more chance of spotting them if they're high in the water.

 

My head-to-head tests showed that one make stood head and shoulders above any other as far as its sidescanning ability goes. This was Humminbird. Unfortunately I gather that a sidescanner can be fitted to only their mid-range models now, but as I said I'm a little out of touch.

 

Bottom Line fishfinders also had fairly good sidescanners, but at the time only a couple of their bottom end models were imported into the UK and these weren't generally as good as other makes.

 

It's probably not worth paying extra for dual frequency for the sort of fishing you're doing unless you're going to be fishing in very deep water in your estuary.

 

Most fishfinders work off 12 volt batteries. Some, including the so-called "portable models", work off eight 1½volt AA batteries. These don't last nearly as long as a gel battery (the sort that run burglar alarms). In fact I always advised my customers not to waste their money on so-called "portable" models as they were bigger, bulkier and more expensive both to buy and run!

 

There are several ways of mounting the transducer and what's best depends on the circumstances. The first is a permanent installation in the bottom of the boat. The second is on a removable bracket on the transom. The third is on a removable suction-cup (that can be troublesome). The fourth, and my own usual solution, is to mount it on my electric outboard that I take from boat to boat anyway.

 

I hope that helps as a starter but to post full recommendations would take many pages. Indeed, my old catalogue contained just that! However, I'd be pleased to answer any specific questions.

[Sportsman]

One here at a vary good price

 

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/template..._requestid=2356

 

I have dealt with cabelas many times with no problems but watch the postage, might be worth while making up an order