Have any of you used the Garmin Striker Cast or Deeper Start fish Finder?  Lately I've been doing a lot of bank fishing and was wondering if one of these would be helpful or just another gimic.

I'm not sure how helpful they be for shore fishing, but they work great for a kayak. 

@J Francho, any model you would recommend?

I don't remember the exact model, but it was from Deeper.  It was bluetooth paired with an iPhone, and the TD was on a gooseneck attached to the bow of the kayak.  Full color display, and I'm 99% certain it had GPS/maps.

@J Francho, ok thanks for the information!

I'd be worried the line would snap

28 minutes ago, slonezp said:

I'd be worried the line would snap

@slonezp, I planned on putting it on a pike rod with 80# PP.

I have a Deeper Pro+, and it has been handy for a few places I like to bank fish that do not allow boats. It works well, except minimum depth for a reading has to be about 2’, usually not a big deal since I’m looking for structure changes anyways. It’s worth the $200 or so if you’re bank fishing a lot. I throw it on a small 6’6” catfish spinning rod with 65lb braid using a lob motion and have had no issues, sometimes I outcast the wifi range.

3 hours ago, J Francho said:

I don't remember the exact model, but it was from Deeper.  It was bluetooth paired with an iPhone, and the TD was on a gooseneck attached to the bow of the kayak.  Full color display, and I'm 99% certain it had GPS/maps.

That's my set up. It does have GPS/maps. It works OK. Mine's getting older though and the battery charge doesn't last as long as it used to.

6 hours ago, Randy Price said:

just another gimic.

 

I did some research on these a year ago.  Ultimately, I decided against it.  But the one that got my attention was the Vexilar SP100.  The reasons are, it was cheaper than the Deeper, by a good margin, and it had wi-fi connection versus Bluetooth.  Bluetooth doesn't have a long range, and from what I was reading, a lot of the Bluetooth enabled fish finders would get disconnected if you casted it very far, making them not good for much other than fishing live bait from a dock.  The Deeper has wi-fi too, and if the price difference doesn't bother you, that would probably be the way to go, as they're a bigger company and they are a bit heavier invested into the technology.  So I'd assume they have better support.

 

Though I'll be honest, none were without their faults.  I read a lot of complaints about all of them.  So I ultimately passed, which was an easy decision to make, because that's when the kayak bug bit me.

Thanks everyone for your responses.  I'm still on the fence about the purchase at this point.