Yak guys??

[Ipleadthefish2]

Hey y'all! 

 

What's your favorite yak sonar set up?  This lake fishing is no f ing joke!! Hahaha. There's so much water! 

[jthod]

I run a Garmin 93SV,  GT54 transducer, and PS22 Panoptics.  (Hobie Pro Angler 14)

The panoptics is awesome for not only vertical jigging, but finding isolated submerged structured to cast to.  It won me two tournaments this year, fishing offshore brush on a really bare lake.  Find brush, line up, launch a 6" citizen past it, and plow it through the tree.

[JacksonF]

Following

[jthod]

Screen pic from a school of white bass and wiper from today. 

 

The panoptics pole is just the ice mount, plus some home made stuff to make it attach to the 1" ram ball.

[Ipleadthefish2]

This is rad, dude!! Thanks for sharing!

[swimbaitrookie]

I use a Garmin 73 SV ram mounted on the left side, transducer on a YakAtack switchblade on the right gear track.  Jackson Coosa HD.

Not running livescope or panoptix, yet but thinking about it but just having the high grade mapping capability with sonar and side-imaging is a huge benefit.  

Recommendation:  get as large a screen size as your budget and space will allow.  I went from a lowrance 5" to the Garmin 7 and will jump to the 9 soon.

[jmpatacsil]

9in Lowrance Elite

[buzzed bait]

i have a garmin 73sv on the hobie, i mounted the transducer on the bottom of the yak where there is a place molded out for the ducer.  i'm mostly an idiot with the thing, but have found some awesome structure in the lake i fish the most running the side scan.

[rwp]

This is really hard to answer without more information.

Do you want down scan? Side scan? Live view? Mapping? Is battery life (size) important? Budget? Does your kayak have a spot to mount a transducer? If so, what transducer? If not, are you going to mount it in the hull, off the side, etc?

For the VAST majority of kayak freshwater and inshore fishing you don't need anything more than a simple down scan unit without mapping, which can be had for $200 or less.

[Ipleadthefish2]

1 hour ago, rwp said:

This is really hard to answer without more information.

Do you want down scan? Side scan? Live view? Mapping? Is battery life (size) important? Budget? Does your kayak have a spot to mount a transducer? If so, what transducer? If not, are you going to mount it in the hull, off the side, etc?

For the VAST majority of kayak freshwater and inshore fishing you don't need anything more than a simple down scan unit without mapping, which can be had for $200 or less.

I didn't realize there was this much to consider.  Lol.  I appreciate all of this.  I'll answer these Questions and hopefully that'll point me down the right road.  Pelican catch 110 is the kayak i have.  

[rwp]

24 minutes ago, Ipleadthefish2 said:

 Pelican catch 110 is the kayak i have.  

So you only have 2 options with that boat. One, is to mount the transducer inside the hull. You basically glue it to the bottom of the hull. For some, it works great. Others have signal issues. It could be certain transducers or just how it's mounted. The benefit to this is that you can mount it centered and towards the front of the kayak for a more "real-time" photo vs the transducer being under the seat or behind you.

Option 2, is something like this. https://www.yakattack.us/cellblok-battery-box-and-switchblade-transducer-arm-combo-clb-1003/

You can use just the transducer arm, or the entire box. The box is nice, because it holds the battery and all the cables. Speaking of battery, go lithium. Nocqua is the gold standard. For the smaller units, all you need is the 4ah battery. If you going side scan 10ah.

It's crazy how fast it all adds up. $100 battery, $100-150 in mounting solutions then you have to buy the actual unit.

Currently, the Garmin vivid 4cv is on sale for $160. That's a screaming deal and a fantastic unit with down scan. Personally, I don't see a need for a bigger screen than that while on a kayak. You mount it 6" from the seat and you fish. It's not like you're walking around the boat and need to see the screen.

Here's my setup, I have the echomap 44cv (exact same, but has saltwater maps). The only limitations with these units is the lack of side scan, but that's not something I would use for my fishing.

Another thing that's commonly overlooked with fish finders on kayaks is that you need to be moving in a straight forward direction to get an accurate representation of what's below you. Kayaks get pushed around a lot more than boats do by the current and wind. I've caught myself numerous times thinking "what the..... is that?" Only to realize I'm drifting sideways or at an angle and the picture is all screwed up. These units are taking MRI style photographs, a single slice at a time to put together what you see on the graph. If you aren't moving, or moving the wrong direction, it's a mess on the screen.

Good luck!

[buzzed bait]

43 minutes ago, rwp said:

So you only have 2 options with that boat. One, is to mount the transducer inside the hull. You basically glue it to the bottom of the hull. For some, it works great. Others have signal issues. It could be certain transducers or just how it's mounted. The benefit to this is that you can mount it centered and towards the front of the kayak for a more "real-time" photo vs the transducer being under the seat or behind you.

Option 2, is something like this. https://www.yakattack.us/cellblok-battery-box-and-switchblade-transducer-arm-combo-clb-1003/

You can use just the transducer arm, or the entire box. The box is nice, because it holds the battery and all the cables. Speaking of battery, go lithium. Nocqua is the gold standard. For the smaller units, all you need is the 4ah battery. If you going side scan 10ah.

It's crazy how fast it all adds up. $100 battery, $100-150 in mounting solutions then you have to buy the actual unit.

Currently, the Garmin vivid 4cv is on sale for $160. That's a screaming deal and a fantastic unit with down scan. Personally, I don't see a need for a bigger screen than that while on a kayak. You mount it 6" from the seat and you fish. It's not like you're walking around the boat and need to see the screen.

Here's my setup, I have the echomap 44cv (exact same, but has saltwater maps). The only limitations with these units is the lack of side scan, but that's not something I would use for my fishing.

Another thing that's commonly overlooked with fish finders on kayaks is that you need to be moving in a straight forward direction to get an accurate representation of what's below you. Kayaks get pushed around a lot more than boats do by the current and wind. I've caught myself numerous times thinking "what the..... is that?" Only to realize I'm drifting sideways or at an angle and the picture is all screwed up. These units are taking MRI style photographs, a single slice at a time to put together what you see on the graph. If you aren't moving, or moving the wrong direction, it's a mess on the screen.

Good luck!

 

some golden nuggets in here!  i used to use that cellblok on my old wilderness ride 135 and it worked VERY well.  the other thing mentioned was the battery.  i have the 10AH nocqua and would buy that thing 100 times over.  it's never let me down or left me without some juice so long as charge it when i get home and make sure it's full when i leave.

[Ipleadthefish2]

51 minutes ago, rwp said:

So you only have 2 options with that boat. One, is to mount the transducer inside the hull. You basically glue it to the bottom of the hull. For some, it works great. Others have signal issues. It could be certain transducers or just how it's mounted. The benefit to this is that you can mount it centered and towards the front of the kayak for a more "real-time" photo vs the transducer being under the seat or behind you.

Option 2, is something like this. https://www.yakattack.us/cellblok-battery-box-and-switchblade-transducer-arm-combo-clb-1003/

You can use just the transducer arm, or the entire box. The box is nice, because it holds the battery and all the cables. Speaking of battery, go lithium. Nocqua is the gold standard. For the smaller units, all you need is the 4ah battery. If you going side scan 10ah.

It's crazy how fast it all adds up. $100 battery, $100-150 in mounting solutions then you have to buy the actual unit.

Currently, the Garmin vivid 4cv is on sale for $160. That's a screaming deal and a fantastic unit with down scan. Personally, I don't see a need for a bigger screen than that while on a kayak. You mount it 6" from the seat and you fish. It's not like you're walking around the boat and need to see the screen.

Here's my setup, I have the echomap 44cv (exact same, but has saltwater maps). The only limitations with these units is the lack of side scan, but that's not something I would use for my fishing.

Another thing that's commonly overlooked with fish finders on kayaks is that you need to be moving in a straight forward direction to get an accurate representation of what's below you. Kayaks get pushed around a lot more than boats do by the current and wind. I've caught myself numerous times thinking "what the..... is that?" Only to realize I'm drifting sideways or at an angle and the picture is all screwed up. These units are taking MRI style photographs, a single slice at a time to put together what you see on the graph. If you aren't moving, or moving the wrong direction, it's a mess on the screen.

Good luck!

My man!! Really appreciate this.  Also jealous of the Lynx.  One day.  One day.  

[swimbaitrookie]

52 minutes ago, rwp said:

Personally, I don't see a need for a bigger screen than that while on a kayak. You mount it 6" from the seat and you fish. It's not like you're walking around the boat and need to see the screen.

That part is accurate but when you are wanting to run multiple screens like GPS + down scan + sonar, or down scan + SI, the more screen you have the easier it is to decipher what you're seeing.  It's all about how much you're willing to invest both in money and time to learn to interpret the graphs.  

[swimbaitrookie]

Having started bass fishing with a Humminbird Super Sixty flasher mounted on my 1956 Alumacraft with 18lb thrust trolling motor, I can honestly say I wish I'd had this stuff back then!