Hello all! I'm new to Kayak fishing and just bought a 12' Frontier NuCanoe. I'm looking at a Hummingbird fish finder but can't decide what size. Also, has anyone used the Side Imaging feature? Is it worth the extra $$? Any suggestions or ideas will be greatly appreciated!

Gary Redman

Go with the biggest screen you can afford. A 9 inch screen is not too big for a kayak. I personally use a Lowrance Elite 7, and it works for me. SI is really nice. Not sure if i can tell you it's worth the cost, but it will show you what's under the water. Think about transducer size and how you will mount it.

I have the same kayak and use a Hummingbird 571 HD. It's portable with a suction cup mounted transducer.

That said you can still put on what you want. Get the biggest best FF with the features you want that you can afford. If they don't have a shoot thru the hull transducer there's plenty of ways to rig it up in the Nucanoe.

It all depends on how you fish. If you spend most of your time in deeper water it probably is. If you spend all of your time sightfishing in skinny water, it'd be a waste of money. Assess YOUR needs, not everyone else's.

I've got a Lowrance Hook 4 and I am very happy with it. I've only been out 3 or 4 times with it so I'm still learning how to use it. It has sonar, downscan, and GPS.

What size should you get? Like someone else said, get the largest screen that you think won't interfere with you operating the kayak and fishing. I mounted the Hook 4 very close to me so it's easy to read but I'm already thinking about a bigger screen! I've included a screenshot to show how I've got my screens configured. I can add a third pane but it would be hard to read on this screen.

Should you get sidescan? Definitely if you can afford it. Just because you have it, you don't have to use it but it would be nice to have as an option if you move the unit to another boat and it will be easier to sell in the future.

To sum it up - I bought a 4" unit with no sidescan and I'm already planning to get a larger unit with sidescan next Black Friday. I took this screenshot on Ray Roberts this past weekend. I threw a spoon at the fish on the graph and caught a couple of nice crappie. If there were any bass, they weren't biting. Ironically, the only bass I caught was almost 7lbs and was close to the bank so the fishfinder wasn't much help except to show water temp.

As others said, it depends on the type of fishing you do. If you crappie fish, I think side imaging is well worth the money. You are human powered and want to fish bridge pilings for crappie. You can waste time paddling to each one to get your sonar cone over it, or... you paddle along between successive columns and look left/right to see which piling might be holding fish. You don't waste your valuable energy checking each one.

I was running a Hook 5 and really like it, but caught a clearance deal on a HB 698C with side imaging and now i really want to pony up for the mega imaging HB, mostly because my vision isn't as great as it was and I need all the resolution I can get.

Just my opinion. You can mount the transducer on an arm hanging over the side of the kayak very easily with RAM mounts.

The biggest one with SI that you can afford.

For deep water, yes. For shallow, no. If you don't want to drop $$ for one, one trick is to tilt the transducer sideway when you need to look out to one side -- only works if you mount the transducer on the outside and on the side of the kayak.

Being in a kayak, we are slow movers and takes a lot of energy to scan a broad area. I LOVE the SI function because it allows me to sit on one spot and spin the kayak 360 with sweep strokes to find structures without having to move about. It is also VERY useful for crappie fishing in timbers and largemouth fishing along ripraps.

As everyone eluded, get the biggest screen you can afford when going SI. Small screens like 5" are garbage because a fish echo is the size of a screen pixel and dang near impossible to distinguish.

Why wouldn't side imaging be any good in shallow water? That's where I use it most.

I have the Humminbird Helix 5 SI. It is perfect for a kayak. I have a PA 14 and I wouldn't mind an upgrade to the Helix 7 which has a slightly larger screen. The unit is so close I can see everything fine on the Helix 5 though. I have my transducer on a pivot arm and drop it in the water when I launch. I get great side imaging in shallow and deep.
The side imaging is important if you need to scan a larger area to find structure or holes that fish may be hiding. With a standard down image you can only see what is below you. With SI you can see what is out to the sides of you up to 150 feet out! That is a lot of ground covered with one pass. You can then move to the spot you saw on the SI to fish. Without it you would have never seen it unless you were right over the top.
For some this is fine as they know what looks "fishy" and what to fish without a sonar but the sonar with SI gives the angler an "edge" to find more.
SI is worth the extra cost even if you fish shallow saltwater all the time like I do. I have seen objects or holes 3 feet away from my kayak and I have stopped, thrown lures and caught fish this way.
Besides, if you don't like to look at the SI or it is only 1' deep you will not use the SI or the down image so sight casting is your "sonar".
Buy what you can afford as you will be stuck with it for a few years!