Best Fish Finder For Trolling Motor

There are many kinds of fish finder devices out there. So in order to choose the right one, it will depend on the type of boat you’re going to be in and what kind of capabilities you’re interested in. As far as small craft is concerned, what kind of fish finder is best?

Standalone fish finders or, more specifically, the Garmin Striker 4, is the fish finder that stands above the rest in terms of the best of the best fish finders for trolling motors.

If you’re only running a trolling motor, then you’re most likely in a flat-bottom, aluminum craft that isn’t very large. You’re not going to need to drop the extra dough on a fish finder that’s also a chart plotter.

You’re going to want something that simply finds the fish. You’re not going to be dealing with the level of depth that a mid-size craft can get into or anything you would find when you go deep-sea fishing.

What Makes The Garmin Striker 4 Stand Out?

The Garmin Striker 4 was clearly made for smaller boats, trolling ponds, small lakes, and other, out-of-the-way bodies of water. It is designed to get you parked over the fish and to know where to move and when at all times.

Features

• HVGA Color Display
• Depth reading up to 1,600’
• Bottom Lock
• Split Screen
• Low price point
• CHIRP Technology
• GPS Tech
• Flasher Mode for Ice

As you can see, the Garmin Striker 4 is absolutely loaded with features, many of which you would only find on high-end fish finders that are designed for really getting out on the water.

The HVGA color display is crisp and clear, albeit on the small side at only 3.5”. Of course, the argument can be made that it’s designed for smaller boats, however, most of the cell phones we take out are bigger than that.

Bottom lock is a nice feature for when you want to stay directly over a target in terms of where the lake bottom is. You can choose a select area and bottom lock it to stay focused on the area you selected.

The split-screen feature is also a nice addition, allowing you to multitask, which gives it more of the feel of a smartphone. The Garmin 4 includes CHIRP technology as well.

CHIRP (Compressed High-Intensity Radiated Pulse) sends a much longer ping—or pulse of energy—into the water than traditional sonar, at a frequency around 117kHz.

For as long as the pulse lasts, the Garmin Striker 4 continues to transmit at different frequencies and since it’s a CHIRP device, it can do this at much lower power levels than fish finders that use traditional forms of sonar.

The GPS is a pretty standard feature nowadays but it’s always nice to see it included. The Garmin Striker 4’s GPS is crisp and efficient, helping you map out the area that you are located and staying pretty spot on.

Since Garmin got its start in navigational GPS systems, you kind of expect them to know the technology through and through by now and they do not disappoint.

Another nice mode, something that you see more and more on fish finders recently, is the ice flasher mode, which is a function that keeps finding fish even when the lake or pond is iced over.

The best part of all is the Garmin Striker 4 managed to pack all of these features into a single device at a very surprising price point.

Other Fish Finders That Are Great For Small Craft

The Garmin Striker 4 isn’t the only fish finder for trolling motors out there. In fact, the market is pretty saturated with a  wide variety of fish finders. Some of them are worth mentioning and others, not so much. We’re going with the former here.

The Hummingbird HELIX 7

While the Hummingbird HELIX 7 doesn’t have anywhere near the depth reach of the Garmin Striker 4, what it does see, it sees incredibly well. You’ll get every tiny little aspect of the water beneath your boat with this device, including how your bait is presented to the fish.

You can purchase a memory card and fill it with maps of various locations that you like to go and the Hummingbird takes it from there, with detailed info presented on your location no matter where you go within your downloaded map.

It has two, separate viewing modes, both of which are incredibly detailed and crisp. Choose the one you want to get the most information. Wide and narrow modes are also nice for widening the view or narrowing it down for better details.

Since it also has a large and detailed touchscreen, you can easily find what you want and navigate through the device menus with ease. There are two drawbacks to the device, however.

Its depth is pretty limited at 124’ and, due to its physical design, it has to be installed on a flat surface. That makes it kind of difficult in a packed boat, especially if you carry a lot of stuff with you on fishing trips.

Since we mentioned CHIRP for the Garmin Striker 4, you’ll be happy to know that the Hummingbird HELIX 7 also utilizes CHIRP technology, so you’ll always know where the fish are and where to go to get there.

Raymarine Dragonfly 4 Pro

This device is a nifty, aesthetically pleasing piece of tech, and it’s optically bonded for a really smooth, crisply-colored viewing experience. It also utilizes CHIRP technology and returns images that are picture-quality.

You don’t have to download any maps either as this comes equipped with everything already built-in. The Navionics + feature includes over 20,000 maps of local lakes and covers the entire coastlines of both the U.S. and Canada.

You can also download an accompanying through which you can view and save downloaded photos from whatever is going on in the water beneath you.

The screen is LED-backlit and takes full advantage of the transducer’s ability to present you with a really wide view of underwater activity.

The transducer is a little on the large side, which can make using it a little irritating and the app isn’t always 100% responsive, with some lag and glitchiness at times. The Raymarine Dragonfly 4 Pro is an excellent fish finder for small craft all the same.

Lowrance Hook Reveal 7

The Lowrance Hook Reveal 7 uses target separation with its CHIRP technology and combines it with high-resolution images to stream picture-like images back to your viewer, which is a 7” SolarMax display that lets you see everything, even in direct sunlight.

Its Genesis Live software allows you to plot and create new maps to add to the inner storage and that’s on top of the 4,000 built-in U.S. lakes. Anywhere you go is either there or you can plot it out yourself.

The built-in auto-tuning software adjusts the system to the fishing conditions around you, no matter how sporadically they change. It also includes HOOK technology that it combines with its auto-tuner so you always get the best and most accurate picture of the water below.

It comes with a “split shot” transducer which uses DownScan imaging in tandem with wide-angle CHIRP sonar to give you a pretty wide and high-resolution view of the fish and landscape under the boat.

The biggest drawback to the Lowrance Hook Reveal 7 is that it’s far more pricey than your average trolling motor setup. Be sure to set aside a week’s worth of pay for one of these.

Venterior Portable Fishfinder

This is a castable fishfinder with a separate viewer but it’s worthy enough to find a way on this list at any rate. It comes with a high-resolution, double-screen LCD display that feeds you a stream from the bobber-like sensor that you cast out.

It has a 90° sonar beam angle and a depth finder that reaches up to 136’. The screen’s double-screen setup allows you to read the feedback in direct sunlight or at night, so you can always see what’s going on.

It also has a pretty good range and you can let it drift up to 260’ away from the viewer and still get a crisp, lag-free image. The best feature of the Venterior Portable Fishfinder is that it is the lowest, bargain price on this list.

It’s a very effective fish finder that’s specifically designed for kayaks and small craft using trolling motors and it doesn’t require that you drill any holes in the boat to drop anything. It simply sets up with your normal rig before you cast it.

Conclusion

While for us the Garmin Striker 4 fish finder stands out the most, in terms of how much it does for such a great price, the other devices on this list are great options as well. If you’re looking for the perfect fish finder for a small fishing craft with a trolling motor, you won’t find better fish finders.

 

Cover Art Credit: Photo by lecreusois from Pexels