Portable Fish Finder

[dmbutler47]

Anyone out there use a portable fish finder? Which one and how do you like it?

[papasage]

i have a smart cast . i like it for spotting a place where to fish and checking under piers . crappie fishing some times you have to be right on them . . i git in close to where i want to fish and cast it and drag it to the boat . when i penpoint the spot i take it in and start fishing .i do have 2 on my boat but bwouldn`t do without the smart cast.

[Roberta]

We had a Humminbird Piranha IV, which is also a portable and the screen looks like the one that comes with the Smartcast. We ended up hardwiring it to the boat because we were going through tons of AA batteries.Last year, we upgraded to a Humminbird 525 which has a permanently mounted transducer, larger screen and more pixels. - Roberta

[mighty]

Pa, or anyone else

Well, tell me does the smartcast show fish directly under it. I have an RF30 and I am not sure how to read it.

Thanx

[dmbutler47]

I think I might just buy one and ifI dont like the way it works I will just return it!!!

[Moose1am]

This is exactly how the Smart cast is designed to be used. Often I find it very hard to find a lone PVC tree in 20ft of water with my small cone depth finder. I often have to throw out a buoy and spend 30 minutes trying to get my boat right over the PVC tree to that I can fish it. But with a smart cast I could anchor the boat nearby and use the smart cast to find the tree by fan casting the suspected area.

One really good thing about the smartcast system is that ie can be linked to a larger display Humminbird unit such at the Matrix Units.

Bank anglers can get the smartcast for under 100 bucks and they will be able to find brush piles within 90 ft of the bank. The range of the smartcast is about 100ft. That's the radio range. It uses radio waves to transmit the depth sounders imaged to the receiver. The battery's are small and when they run dry you just have to buy a new transducer casting pot for about 30 bucks. The transducer is designed to only turn on when it's wet. When you take it out of the water it turns itself off to save the batteries.

It's faster to fan cast and located a single submerged tree near the boat than it is to move the boat around and try to find a single tree with the boat's permenantly mounted transducer. IMHO that is.

Now if the brush pile is big and you are in deeper water and you have a depth sounder that can send out a larger cone angle sound wave or use multiple beams (phased arrays sonar beams) you will be able to locate this bush pile much easier.

It all depend on the lake you are fishing and the type of structure you are looking for and the type of depth sounder you have on your boat.

There are advantages and disadvantage to having a particular cone angle on your depth finder.

The new units are giving us multiple cone angles that can be adjusted by the user.

Humminbird is a leader in this field. Especially when you look at their Side scanning Sonar units. No one else makes these type of units in the same price range that Humminbird has.

Hopefully the competition will increase and others will make similar units and bring the prices down we more people can afford to by these side scanning sonar units.

i have a smart cast . i like it for spotting a place where to fish and checking under piers . crappie fishing some times you have to be right on them . . i git in close to where i want to fish and cast it and drag it to the boat . when i penpoint the spot i take it in and start fishing .i do have 2 on my boat but bwouldn`t do without the smart cast.

[unknown 5]

I have a Bottomline "Fishing Buddy II" that is very portable and I like it. It uses C batteries. I especially like the sidefinder feature. I think they are worth the money.
I have a Hummingbird Matrix 37 on my boat. I may invest in a Smartcast accessory for it.

[frank lawhead]

DO YOU HAVE THE TRANSDUCER ON THE TRANSOM OR THE TROLLING MOTER ON YOUR MATRIX 37 ?

[unknown 5]

I have my transducer mounted on the transom. That way I can read fish and structure while running my boat at full speed. I put the Fishing Buddy unit in it;s holder while I am running my trolling motor. To be honest, I only use the Fishing Buddy unit occasionally. But, it does a good job when I do use it.

[papasage]

roberta i calle humming bird about hooking the smart cast to my boat battery and they said it couldn`t be don. i sent mine back the switch wouldn`t work some times and i thought the battery was bad . checked the wire with a meeter and it showed the batteries wer good .
the batteries equal to 12 volts guess the amps is why it wan`t work on boat battery