would like to put a graph on my yak any suggestions? i have heard they dont work in shallow water. mainly just wanting to see bottom contour and deep. THANKS

I have a Cuda 168 on both of my yaks and they work great.
When I get my new yak next month I'm contemplating a Cuda 250 FF/GPS.

I got one of the Hummingbird Fishin Buddies. It is "ok". You can only mark fish, cant mark the fish feedies "arches." Its basically good for depth and surface water temp. Its somewhat hard to measure structure as well. I have only used it a hand full of times so I still need to get comfortable with reading the graph

I have the Cuda 320 and love it. It gives me depths as low as 0.8 ft. Shallower than that you really dont need it. Here is my rigging

Cuda 168 here. Nothing fancy but gives me enough info. Didn't want to spend a lot of money on the chance I might dump.

Anyone using this unit?

EAGLE CUDA 250 S/MAP DEPTH FINDER

That is what I'm considering for my new yak.

I picked mine up at sportsmen warehouse going out of business sale for $90 if I remember. It was only a little more than a 168. I have learned that it does draw alot more juice, so I use a higher amp battery now.

I have a piranha max220 by humminbird with a plastic thru-hull transducer. I like this transducer because it allows me to run it through one of my scupper holes to the water without having to mess with epoxy or other stuff to mount it in the hull. It was a little expensive, @ $79, but I didn't mind since I got the finder for only $40 from a guy on craigslist.

a personal thanks to- tcf-bfail-hambone911-spiny norman-late4lake-j davis7873 for your respones and input thank you,tbass

Eagle 500 on mine

I used a 'Cuda 242 which wasnt really my first choice but for $38.00 on clearence sale at Wally World...I was all over it.

It works pretty good and has been found to be pretty accurate making the depth, fish and water temp. The 8 amh battery that I power it with will run all night long with back light on and still leave some power on the battery left.

For your purpose, you might consider what I use. I picked up one of the old Eagle Portable Fish Finder with Battery Power Pack units from a fellow TFF member on the trading post forum for $20, but you can always find them on ebay for $50 to $75. An example of one: http://cgi.ebay.com/Eagle-Fish-ID-128-Portable-Fish-Finder_W0QQitemZ300238664936

For mine I permanently mounted the transducer behind my seat and spliced in a connector. Though my kayak is of a three layer type, my transducer still shoots through the hull just fine. You could also probably get by with the suction cup transducer mount that most of those type depth finders came with.

The fish finder unit and battery pack is set on my front deck with the deck straps crossed over the battery pack to hold the whole thing in place. The transducer cable is just run along the floor of my kayak and plugged into the connector on my transducer. I then turn the unit on and off and operate the controls with the edge of my paddle.