Poll: Fish Finders

[rabbitearscarver]

What fish finders do you use? Features you like? What about the portable pocket ones? Cheapo ebay and Harbor Freight ones?
Thanks in advance!
Dave

[DShock]

Dave,
Welcome to the BB! I have had a Fish Finder and a Depth Finder (flasher).
Unless you enjoy looking at little fish on TV rather than fishing, I would suggest a Depth Finder.
Not a cheap one.
Doug

[J Castwell]

A bi-visible or a small bit of worm seem to cover most situations.

[Jerry]

I was chastised on this board some years ago for suggesting a crank telephone or perhaps dynamite in lieu of a fish finder.
For me at least a good portion of the enjoyment of fly fishing is reading the water and "finding" the fish myself.

[DShock]

I was chastised on this board some years ago for suggesting a crank telephone or perhaps dynamite in lieu of a fish finder.
For me at least a good portion of the enjoyment of fly fishing is reading the water and "finding" the fish myself.

Jerry,
You are absolutely correct! Time is best spent fishing.

[Rick Z]

I have a "Fshing Buddy" that I use at times to get the lay of a pond. Depth, breaklines ect.
It is a little faster than using the anchors to find the same info.

Rick

[BassYakker]

I have a Huminbird Matrix 25. I have never used the ones you are asking about, but I can say that having a decent size display has turned out to be important. What use (boat, dock, tube, etc) are you going to use it for?

I have mine mounted on my kayak and the features I use:

-large (font) depth reading
-fish alarm (when paddling from point A to point B. Many times, it has made making it to point B unnecessary. )
-Dual frequency
-I like being able to adjust the chart speed

Good Luck!

[J Castwell]

Actually, it's kind of fun not knowing. It's what separates fishing from shopping.

[BlackGnat]

Hi Dave,

I use one of the early inexpensive Humminbird SmartCast finders that use the transducer that can be tied to a spinning/casting line. What I do is tye the transducer to my kayak with a short length of 20# test line so that it floats just beside it. I usually leave the fish alarm and such switched off, and just use the bottom contour display to find submerged trees, tractor tires, etc. in a local lake.

Jeff

"Any rod good rod. Good line, much work!"

[BrookieAngler]

I usually just look down at the weeds to see where the contour shifts and, like JC, I like a bivisible to figure out where the fish are. Even if they don't bite, they tend to come take a look. I've used a few small fishfinders just for contour info and they didn't really give me any info I couldn't figure out just by paying attention to the water.