Little bitty depth finders for a pontoon

[bobbyneuman]

you should try to get quality you can find small but don't waste money on $129 special, you get wha you pay for

[deathb4disco]

I fish out of a tube and have used the Smartcast for years. It works for me.

[Buddy Sanders]

Any depthfinder you buy that will easily mount to a pontoon (stay away from the 'castable' ones, they aren't going to help you) will do all you need it to do.

You want to know the depth. Any sonar unit will tell you that.

If you want to know the temperature, you can buy inexpensive units that will tell you this also.

Those are by far the two most improtant pieces of information that a stillwater fly fisherman can have, and I'd rather fish without a reel than without my sonar unit.

If you know the depth, you can find channel edges, breaklines, and other 'edges' that hold fish. If you know the temperature, you can find the best available water temperature for your intended quarry. You can find and identify places where water temperatures change (springs, current edges, etc.) that also hold fish. Once you learn to use your unit to the limits of it's potential (taking it off 'auto' and setting hte sensitivity properly, learning to recognize what a hard or soft bottm 'looks like' on your screen, etc.), you will be able to identify differing bottom types, substrates, and cover types.

At most fly fishing depths, seeing a 'fish' will be mostly a matter of luck due to cone angles. Even a $2,000 full color unit won't tell you much about fish or structure in under 20 feet of water.

Side 'finders' are almost useless. Due to the processing needed to allow them to show anything, they are notoriously inaccurate and 'false' fish and structure images are common. I'd not pay for that feature and wouldn't use it on a unit that had it.

Good Luck!

Buddy

[NewTyer 1]

How about something like this? I have seen here on FAOL that alot of people use them and it gets decent reviews.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Boati...3Bcat104588280

[FishnDave]

I use a Lowrance X67C on my kayak. It uses a reasonably-sized battery, about the size of a brick. It will go all day and then some. It is color, and excellent at showing fish, structure, depth, and surface temp (although my transducer is mounted inside the hull of my kayak, so I don't rely on the temperature readings too much). It was reasonably priced. I see Lowrance has replaced this unit with a newer model, but it is basically the same. It also has the "flasher mode", which is good for vertical fishing once you've anchored up. If your fly/lure is under you in the the cone of the transducer, you can watch it go up and down in real time (or close to it), and watch fish come up and hit it.
I recommend it. There are other reasonable options available as well.

[Thomas]

i use a eagle cuda 240 which has a pixal of 240/168 and i would not go below this to get good picture quality.I had mine on a creek company pontoon sold that and put it on a small one man boat used contact cement and the suction cup mount for the transducer.The best battery is one like cabelas offers with the charger in 12v for around 30-40 bucks.

[jimsnarocks]

I have 3. One was a gift and 2 I won in FF club raffles. #1 is the Hawkeye F3350P, #2 is the Hawkeye F33P. Both are made by NorCross. They have the transducer on a long cord that tangles up and gets in the way of oars and fins. Also the unit is hand held and not easy to manage while flyfishing. #3 is a Fishing Buddy with a pontoon holster. I like it the best. Have it mounted where I can just glance at it when I want to. Jim

[Duffin Boy]

I like the Fishing Buddy.
Works great on the Tube, Canoe or small boat.
No transducer to mount, install or take off in seconds.

DuFf

[jszymczyk]

I just recently bought and installed a Lowrance Elite-4 for my kayak. it is a LOT more compact that what is pictured on the float tube in Duffin Boy's picture, includes a GPS plotter for marking structure etc, very light and easy and great display. It only uses roughly 250mA so a very small 12V 2.3 Ah SLA will power it for basically all day. You can buy glue-on RAM and Scotty mounts for float tubes. There is no reason to handicap yourself with low-quality electronics. Better to save up $$ and get something high quality than to spend half on stuff you'll have problems with.

[bobbyneuman]

yea i agree, i always try to get the very best state of the art in everything that has to do with fishing, but most of my excursions are walking up river or fishing structure from my canoe, this humminbird as nice as it is is a little more than i want, the fish finder cost twice what the canoe is worth over $1000, i guess i'll post an ad for it. i thought of you cause i know you have a boat and i trust you, i grew up in the inner city and it's not in my nature to trust just anyone. if you were interested i would send you the unit and if your satisfied than send me 500, that is half price and the only place this has been hooked up was in demo mode never been on a boat,,,anyway good luck fishing maybe we could meet at the grand river this late spring or early summer and i/ll show you what these 20 inch river smallmouth are all about. to me they are the gamest fish pound for pound inch for inch they are it, keep in touch bobby