Does anyone use these and have any recommendations? Thanks much.

Never will use them, while fishing the bank. I would rather cover water fishing than looking. Besides how much underwater area can you see with that type of fish finder. I have banked fished a lot over the years and never thought of using any type of a fish finder. I usually have no trouble at all finding fish.


Side Note: Fishing from a boat is another story. Fish finders/graphs are a must !

Banker is dead on. The only thing of value you can get is water depth because resolution is to poor. You can figure that out with a cork.

Unless im deep on structure, most of my fish are caught within a few feet of the bank. Angle your cast down that bank instead of away from it.

I was planning to use it in marina slips to see which are holding fish and at what depth. Also on fishing piers.

A castable fish finder or a small underwater camera would workout well inside of a boat slip.

Side Note: Usually when I fish boat slips, it does not take long to find out if fish are biting inside of a slip. I would simply not use a fish finder unless I was fishing on a boat. Just my two cents.

Not sure if Harbor Freight Tools (HFT) still has one for sale. I bought one years ago, as we needed one for my sister's 12 foot Porta-Bote (as the vinyl boat folds up when not in use). We would place the transponder in a 2 gallon bucket with about half full of water or less in tjhe rear of the boat. Of course that would read about 6 inches deeper than actual, but good to see if fish are in the area. I forget how much lead wire it has, as I have not uncovered where I have it in my closet for some time. But in theory, it should go out at least 6 feet, possibly 8 or 10'. But if a slow slope, that won't tell you much. You would want to use a tie cord for bank, plus one with a small weight to keep it out. But it would be best if you knew the depth. If not, you could do a few tossout research throws to shorten the depth line with the weight.

You could also use one of the remote little toy boats. My son-in-law has one that he can launch his line from out farther.

I've used a couple of different castable fish finders over the years, and I can vouch for what everyone is saying. The utility and the resolution are questionable. They don't really work if it's less than 6ft deep, and I can't really say that I've ever successfully graphed a fish or caught a fish because of one. They do seem good at determining depth when I'm out in the canoe, but the Navionics app pretty much does the same thing but better. And they're pretty much always in perfect agreement.

I started off with a no-name castable that had a separate handheld LCD monitor for the display. It cost about $65 on ebay. It was pretty much useless and broke after a couple of outings.

I've since got the Sonarphone transponder which pairs with an app on my phone. That's actually not so bad and I still use it from time to time. As I recall it was in the $120 range. The resolution is good enough that if I was better at reading it it might have actually found me a few fish by now. The problem is that it's sorta a pain to use in the canoe. It's constantly turning itself off or breaking the wifi connection, and while it's running I can't get texts or have my phone connected to cellular data (not necessarily a bad thing to be unplugged tho). So I'm constantly futzing with this thing and trying to get it back into the mode where it runs parallel with Navionics in a splitscreen, all while I can't see anything through the sun glare and my phone is getting splashed on and wet, and all the while my fishing buddy is using my intel and positioning to keep casting and catchin fish, and I haven't even got my line wet yet. And then it's running out of juice and draining my phone's battery after a couple of hours.

But I dunno, I keep trying. It might work pretty good on a pier. You might also consider some of those transponders designed for ice fishing. They're mostly intended for stationary up/down use, and in general they're of a higher quality than the castable ones.

I watched on youtube from a dude in Plano that built a fun little cabled camera that was on the end of his fishing line. I'll try to find it and post a link. Altex is a go to for building gadgets, I always start there when I'm trying to Frankenstein something.

We have an old smart cast, works pretty well but eats batteries fast.
Used it in our canoe and found lots of smallmouth bass while fishing the lake we were on.
Not the best by any means but it works. Fun to use and see the fish.

I have one and I attempted to use it on my kayak for a little while and it did not work the way I was hoping. The only time that it worked well is if the water is calm, like glass. Then the readings were better, but still not as good as a actual finder with a transducer. I still use it when I'm bank fishing from time to time especially when I'm fishing a new place. I do not use it to locate fish, but I will use it to locate drop off's and structure but never to locate fish. Plus it's only good for about an hour or so.

I have a deeper pro. It works well. I only use it during creek fishing season. It works well when water is calm. When i'm fishing new creek I use it to determine depth and find fish. Saves me time from fishing deeper pockets that doesn't hold any fish.