Its the offseason and after spending the season without a finder on my new kayak, its time to start looking for one. I've been kayak fishing for over a decade and I installed a cheap $100 budget depth finder on my old yak. This year I finally upgraded to a Feel Free Lure 11.5. I really didn't want to mount that old cheap finder on this new yak. I fish a lot of rivers for smallies, but I've started fishing lakes more over the last couple years but I'm still a river rat at heart. I've been looking at down scan, side scan, 360, CHIRP and all the other latest and greatest technological options for SONAR. Not 100% sure what I want but I really like threw idea of side scan imaging but not sure how useful it would really be on a kayak? I also want to be able to mount my transduce inside the hull and have it shoot thru. From what I've read this won't work with side imaging? How about down scan? will a down scan transducer work thru the hull? Most of these features won't be much benefit on a river where most of the water I'll be fishing is under 4 FOW. But I fish lakes enough now that I think it justifies spending $500-$700 on a descent unit. Thanks in advance for your input!

Its the offseason and after spending the season without a finder on my new kayak, its time to start looking for one. I've been kayak fishing for over a decade and I installed a cheap $100 budget depth finder on my old yak. This year I finally upgraded to a Feel Free Lure 11.5. I really didn't want to mount that old cheap finder on this new yak. I fish a lot of rivers for smallies, but I've started fishing lakes more over the last couple years but I'm still a river rat at heart. I've been looking at down scan, side scan, 360, CHIRP and all the other latest and greatest technological options for SONAR. Not 100% sure what I want but I really like threw idea of side scan imaging but not sure how useful it would really be on a kayak? I also want to be able to mount my transduce inside the hull and have it shoot thru. From what I've read this won't work with side imaging? How about down scan? will a down scan transducer work thru the hull? Most of these features won't be much benefit on a river where most of the water I'll be fishing is under 4 FOW. But I fish lakes enough now that I think it justifies spending $500-$700 on a descent unit. Thanks in advance for your input!

You are correct about SI and shoot-thru.

 

Humminbird's Down Imaging transducer is suitable for a shoot-thru application. 

All the Down Imaging units come with the XNT 9 DI T transom transducer. The XIH 9 DI T is the same one but comes with epoxy instead of the transom bracket.

 

Another option is a Quad Beam transducer that has three sonar crystals. The center one is a Dual Beam 83/200 kHz and the left and right crystals are 455 kHz 2D sonar. It is referred to as the poor man's Side Imaging. It can be used for shoot-thru. A lot of models can use that transducer including the Side Imaging units.

This is an example of a Quad Beam screen shot:

 

This is a kayak installation kit for a Humminbird Down Imaging transducer---there is a similar one for a 2D transducer also.

 

http://www.boatersland.com/hum740125-1.html

That's very good info. Thank you for that! I'm very interested in the quad beam transducers now. What unit produced those images? The ability to shoot thru the hull is nearly a prerequisite for me. How wide of a beam do you get with a quadbeam trans ducer? I guess my question is how deep does the water need to be to get that 80 foot view that you have in the screenshot? I wonder if I could get that in just 10-12 FOW?

looks like I have some more research to do now!

That's very good info. Thank you for that! I'm very interested in the quad beam transducers now. What unit produced those images? The ability to shoot thru the hull is nearly a prerequisite for me. How wide of a beam do you get with a quadbeam trans ducer? I guess my question is how deep does the water need to be to get that 80 foot view that you have in the screenshot? I wonder if I could get that in just 10-12 FOW?

looks like I have some more research to do now!

Go to this link and look at all the examples. The coverage for the Quad Beam is included:

 

http://www.humminbird.com/Category/Technology/Switchfire/

 

 

Then go to the Humminbird web site and check the Specifications for each unit to see which ones support the Quad Beam transducer.

I want to get the hummingbird DI and was wondering if it was good to shoot through the kayak.  Good to know!  I have the 2d scan right now but looking for something more without going bigger and more price.  Hummingbird 197C DI is going to be perfect.  Thanks for the info guys!