I have seen this thing for awhile and always looked at it as a gimmik, but after reading some reviews of the thing, I am thinking this could help me while fishing from shore.  

Has anyone seen or heard anything about these. For those not familiar it comes with a small green floating transducer that you cast out into a spot and it reads like any other sonar.

Here's a link:

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Subclass_10151_-1_10001_200001001_200000000_200001000_image_1_0

I am wondering how well this product is. it seems you would have to cast it to each spot you were actually going to cast to to see the specs. on each place. I don;t know if this thing would spook the fish constantly splashing in on top of them.

There are different version in the smartcast family. I bought one 2 years ago and really enjoyed using it. I got the one with the largest screen, not the wrist or rod mounted ones. It did help me to find structure wich is what I was after. It was not super accurate  but would show depth and conture and if there were fish there. I havn't used it for some time as I bought a 2 man "bassboat" and a normal sonar. But if you fish only from shore I will say it did work just don't be thinking you will be getting 3d side imaging quality screens, it is basic. Hope this helps.

Paul

I bought one about three weeks ago at Dicks ( 59.99 ).

Mine works great.  Only problem was the orginal battery died after one day.  Replacement battery has worked fine.

Being a shore bound angler it has been a great help.  First thing I did was hit all my favorite ponds and small lakes and gt a depth reading and see if there was any structure.

I have the wrist one and if I go to a new place I'll tie on the green float and walk around the area I'm fishing and make mental notes of depth, structure and contour.  

You can easily out cast the range of the sensor but it still works well in the 50-75 ft range.  One other thing I do now is I turn the watch part so it is on the inside of my wrist.  Eaiser to read as I crank it in.

I bought one almost two years ago, and it's a piece of crap.  I knew for a fact that a lot of the depth readings were incorrect, and if there's any kind of a chop on the water, forget it.

If you're going to be fishing from shore on glass-calm conditions and want to see if there's any obvious structure underwater, it would probably help.  But for anything else, especially if the water isn't glassy-calm, don't get it.

I tried a wrist model a few years ago, and after a couple of outings I dumped it for a few bucks. For me, the size of the display was just too small. I went up a step to the smartcast RF 15, and have been pretty satisfied with the unit. The downside - though relatively light in weight, it's one more thing to carry as I'm working my way along a bank or around a pond.

Whether wrist model, or larger, I think anything is better than nothing when fishing the banks of strange waters. Nothing worse than casting into a submerged christmas tree.

Hope this helps.

 THIS THREAD IS A LITTLE TOO DEEP FOR ME