What Fish finder is the best for kayak? Let me know your thoughts. I see the Lowrance elite 3x is on sale at BP.

That all depends on your budget and what kind of fishing you do.

It depends on your budget and needs. Conventional sonar, down scan/imaging, side scan, GPS, takes a map card? I have a Lowrance Elite 4 HDI that I'm quite happy with.

Lowrance HDS Touch 7 But seriously whatever you can afford.

TT, I think the Elite 3X is a good size for most kayaks. I personally don't want a 10-12" wide sonar on my kayak.

If you're fishing mostly shallow water and want anything more than depth and temp, sonar only is pretty much useless. That's just one reason the type of fishing you do and the water bodies you fish play a big part in the FF you need.

i HAVE to have down imaging so id go with the elite4 series no less. BUT thats me.

Agree, how you fish and where you fish are big factors.

I'd say regular 2D 83/200 khz is across the board the most useful--this eliminates the DSI only as a stand alone option in my opinion. It's the cheapest and easiest to install (very little image degradation shooting through the hull)
If you do a lot of big lake or night time fishing, GPS is a big help.
If you do a lot of deep ledge/structure/cover/brush pile fishing, DSI is great
If you like to do a lot of stand up sight fishing, side imaging is something you might really want.

You can always start small, and add on later
I started with just the regular Lowrance Elite 4x 2D for 83/200 khz for less than $150
When the Elite 4 DSI with GPS dropped below $200, I picked one of those up.


Picture below in Demo mode

I personally use a $99 Humminbird. I mainly use it to tell me the depth and water temp.
I usually fish shallow but at times I'll anchor out in 30' if I find some drop offs and structure.
In a kayak you are pretty much limited in time and travel since you aren't going to pick up and travel accross the lake looking for that certain structure or fish location, and you are pretty much limited to what you see is what you get.
Find a dropoff or interesting structure it only takes a minute or two to put a bait into the water to check it out.

Lots of good info, I do a lot LM and Crappie fishing so I definitely need to be able to locate drop off and structure. Thanks for again for the input.

since i dont usually target LMB
Something that will show me bait and depth/contour is really all I need.
Dont really need color. But GPS & color would b nice to have i guess.
a good map chip would b extra nice.
Side scan would b the shizzle & 360 well, that just blows my mind

I recently installed my lowrance elite 5 with down scan imaging, the picture was so sharp I was able to pick up an old trot line at the bottom. An absolute game changer, now if I could just find dem crappie stacking up in Ray Bob.

I was looking at the new Humminbird Helix for my next kayak graph, I saw some of the packages at Cabela's and they are feature rich with low impact on the pocket book. My biggest impression was that it is a wide screen landscape only fish finder that would be out of the way of things.

Also, here is another recent post with fish finder questions and opinions, fish finder

I honestly use mine to tell me where not to fish. I look at temp, depth, and structure. You will always see something on the sonar that "could" be A bass. But I fish structure and conditions. My Lowrance 4 HDI Chrip does the job. Has a map on it for bigger lakes that I can save wave points too also.

Ultimately, I'd get one you can use now and learn to catch fish from it. It may take a few trips out but who would complain about having to go out fishing more?

My HDS7 touch works great for me,its what you need to fit your technique and budget.