Do fish finders work from shore? Yes, but only if you pick the right deployment for the spot. A castable sonar streams readings to your phone out to roughly 200 to 330 feet, while a wired unit in a portable case can be clamped to a dock piling, a bank stick or a railing and … Read more
The all-day trip is where most trolling motor batteries quit before the angler does. Run the numbers and it is easy to see why: runtime in hours is roughly your amp-hour rating multiplied by usable depth of discharge, divided by the motor’s amp draw. A 100Ah LiFePO4 pack gives you about 90 usable amp-hours, while … Read more
The best transom mount trolling motor for jon boats is the Newport NV-Series 55 lb saltwater transom mount. It clamps on without drilling, pushes hard enough for a loaded 14 to 16 ft hull, and carries the deepest review history of anything we tested. For small 10 to 12 ft jon hulls on calm freshwater, … Read more
Picking the wrong bow mount trolling motor is expensive in a quiet way. You will not find out it was undersized until you are pushing into a cold north wind with the trolling motor straining and your battery gauge reading lower than you planned for. We have spent the last few months sorting through the … Read more
A trolling motor is a small electric motor mounted on the bow or transom of a boat that drives a propeller through a shaft, letting you move quietly and hold a line without an outboard engine. For small boats under 16 feet it is often the only propulsion the boat needs, because it costs far … Read more
The best marine chartplotters for inshore boats are the Lowrance Elite FS 10, the Simrad GO 9, and the Garmin ECHOMAP UHD2 94sv. All three pair a sunlight-readable touchscreen with a built-in sonar and a transducer in the box, and each one fits a console under 25 feet without blocking your forward view. Most inshore … Read more
Most kayak anglers buy the fish finder first and the mount second, then spend a season fighting a transducer arm that sits at the wrong angle, leaks current, or turns the kayak into a sail. The mount is not an accessory. It decides whether your sonar reads clean arches or smeared noise, whether you can … Read more
If you are chasing bluegill, crappie and yellow perch under ice, the best ice fishing fish finders for panfish are the ones that show you a small, tight target in real time at 10 to 25 feet, not the ones with the biggest screens. The Garmin Striker 4 is our top pick: it carries CHIRP … Read more
Shallow water breaks sonar in a specific, repeatable way, and the fix is almost always the transducer rather than the display. Here is the short version: for water under about 10 feet, 200 kHz and above resolves targets far better than 83 kHz, but a higher frequency narrows the beam, so you trade scan width … Read more
Short answer: the Garmin STRIKER 4 is the best fish finder with GPS for lakes for most anglers, because it pairs CHIRP sonar with a built-in GPS chartplotter, reads accurately at trolling speed, and stays readable through polarized sunglasses in full sun. If you want side scan structure finding or a big networked screen, step … Read more