Hi all from Manitoba. I’m looking to purchase a new fish finder and am intrigued by the hand-held and wrist units I have seen on eBay made by Zebco, Norcross, Hummingbird and ,of course, Chinese knockoffs. Has anyone had any experience with any of these?
I’ve heard good things about the
Norcross units, though they seem a bit cumbersome. The Humminbird wrist and pole type aren’t, in my opinion, worth the money. I bought a wrist type. The screen is very small and the transducer stopped working the third trip out. At first, it was fine. I didn’t cast it, but hooked it to the side of my kayak with a commercial steel leader with clip. Traded it in on an Eagle Cuda 168 that I ran off 8 AA’s. Some use the 12 volt 7.5 amp deer feeder type batteries. Others now use 10 AA rechargeables, lighter in weight. Don’t know aobut Zebco finders.
Portable Fish Finder
Check out the Fishing Buddy. Friend of mine had one on his canoe and it seemed to work pretty good.
Had the Hummingbird…
didn’t like it. Gave it away.
If you paddled or retrieved it faster than about 1.5 mph it wouldn’t work. Screen was too small. Neat toy for VERY limited circumstances IMHO. The guy I gave it to is and avid and experienced fisherman. He loves them. Go figure.
Good to see you here yak a lou. I’ve
read some of your posts over on KFS, but its been a while since you’ve visted with us. Hope all is well.
Stay away from wrist units
I had the same experience with my Smartcast wrist model as Jerry. Hummingbird sent me a new transducer, and that went out too.
I took it back to Academy and paid the
extra after exchange for a real finder, my Cuda 168.
Backatcha Jer
Seems like you handle most of the stuff over here real well so I just pop in every once in a while to keep you honest. ;o)
Everything is well over thisaway cept I can’t seem to buy time to go chase my lil red buddies in the marsh. Hope you & yours are doin well.
GoGetEm!
Sounds good, I’ve been tangling with
heavy weight gar lately, haven’t landed one, but sure some good runs.
hummingbird
I had the same experience as lou with the hummingbird. Only difference is that I rigged it to a separate telescoping pole that fit in my tackle box. Anyway, it didn’t work most of the time, so gave up on it.
Bottom Line
Fishing Buddie Works great on my canoe. Its has down+ vertical views. I am looking to upgrade to a newer one soon.
Norcross Marine
Great little fish finder. I got it to prospect around a pier, dock, or from shore. When you have a 9 year old son, you want him to catch fish. You can screw it on to a broom handle (I use a 12 foot “LongArm” painting pole). It gives you depth and temp. When it spots something that looks like a fish or a school of fish a little fish icon appears on the right hand of the screen. If you make another pass, the first icon moves to the left and a new icon appears at the approx depth.
It comes with a floating transducer and fits in a tackle box. I paid $65 for mine.
I’m a fly fisherman, and I have not used fish finders in the past. But, it is a neat gizzmo. In time I will buy another with a suction cup transducer for use in a canoe, but until then, the Norcross Hawkeye unit is well worth the money.
I bought a Bottom Line
Fishing Buddy for my canoe, only got to use it a couple times and not completely familiar with its operation and have never used one before but have pulled fish from where it showed them. Plan on a much better workout for it very soon, very soon.