Alright, I love being on the water. Kayaking was always a personal goal of mine, but I will be honest when I say, that part of it was the desire to go fishing. Kayak fishing seemed like a great way to get out and go to the fish. Actually find where they ere as apposed to sitting on the shore.
Well, as it turns out, it is harder than it looks.
So I actually invested in a fish finder to help in my search.
I use a Hummingbird. I know Hummingbird makes better models, but this was was relatively inexpensive, at $150, you can find them for a few dollars cheaper. I assume the more expensive models are better since this one can be a hassle sometimes. I have noticed that it doesn't work well until about 8 ft of water, which has been confirmed to me by other fishers.
Since I hadn't used a fish finder before I want to keep things affordable. That and I don't have the money for expensive equipment. Color, DSI, and GPS are all nice additions that will each add about $100 to the price.
Newer models with CHIRP are an advanced form of color and add about $200 to the price. Side scan also adds about $200 to the price as well. They get more advanced from there with multiple transducers and GPS positioning receivers, 10" screens, and huge batteries to power it on the kayak. This is all fine and good, but not for me, it's only going to help an extremely sophisticated angler that wants to mark very subtle structure and be able to return to it.
Most of the time people will be happy with a cheap unit that gives depth and basic subsurface structure. It is more important knowing the depth that surface structure anyway. You may be 50 ft from shore, but knowing if you're in 5 ft of water or 20 ft of water can make a big difference in your lure selection and retrieve.
And for that Humminbird and Lowrance are both sure bets for inexpensive units. I want something that I can use to say that looks like a place a fish might want to be rather than messing around with settings trying to find suspended fish and what have you.
