Hey. I'm from nj and typically fish water that doesn't get much deeper then six foot deep, on my kayak. Almost all the fishermen around here just beat the snot out of the bank, all day, all year.

Since I fish shallow smaller lakes would a FF be worth it?

What I do now to find spots, other then the bank, is watch where boats with electronics are going. Then I'll throw on a Carolina rig and see what they may have spotted on their FF, with mediocre results

I can get the elite 4x chirp for 125. Is this worth it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Thanks!

A locator is well worth the investment. They are your eyes for underwater even if it is shallow. I'm a predominately shallow water fisherman as well, but I feel lost if I don't have one. There are a few lakes I know well enough I could get by without one, but it's always better to have one than to not. 

I fish a lot of lakes that are shallow and i had a basic fish finder, a piranhamax from a a few years ago and it helped locate some things i would have never found otherwise.  I did just upgrade to a SI unit and after one use all i can say is that I wish i got it sooner.  I am still a big time newbie on how it all works but so far I have already found some things that would have taken me a lot of paddling to find with my other fish finder.