Five of the Best Cheap Fish Finders

If you can’t afford the latest in fish finding technology but still want a helping hand, there are a host of cheap fish finders available to choose from. Here are five of our favorites.

Fish finders don’t have to break the bank. While there are plenty top models out there with the latest technology and high end features, you have plenty of choice when it comes to finding cheap fish finders. Often they are designed with apps to connect to a cell phone, making them much less pricey.

The key thing when it comes to cheap fish finders is figuring out ahead of time what features are absolutely vital to you and understanding that you won’t get everything when you are working with a strict budget. Speak to experts and they will tell you that there really is no single best fish finder, and it is a matter of cutting through the buzz words and the marketing.

Experts also say that you need to make sure that the cheaper models will work with your set up. For example, there are a lot of portable, cheap fish finders which are great if you take infrequent trips, have a smaller boar or kayak or rent a boat.

There are also castable fish finders, which are basically a transducer pod that floats, and a smartphone app is the fish finder. These models are excellent for fishing from shore or from small watercraft.

Humminbird 410210-1 Helix 5 Chirp GPS G2

There are some pretty powerful cheap fish finders around, including the Humminbird 410210-1 Helix 5 Chirp GPS G2 model which comes with CHIRP Dual Beam PLUS Sonar that allows for chart plotting and a micro SD card for optional maps or for saving waypoints.

This model has a five-inch color display with backlight and according to the manufacturer puts anglers in complete command of how their sonar returns appear. With two unique display modes, you can adjust to your fishing conditions on the fly.

Available for less than $250, this may be quite a bit cheaper than other high-end Humminbird models, but it still allows you to add or remove detail, take account of the water depth, temperature and turbulence and even experiment with lure presentations, all at the push of a button.

The auto-chart live function allows you to create richly detailed maps of your favorite fishing spots in real-time. This is not just depth, as while it has depth contours, it also shows vegetation and bottom hardness. Eight hours of recording time is included on every compatible unit.

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Garmin Striker Plus 4cv

The Garmin Striker Plus 4cv includes a transducer for built-in Garmin CHIRP traditional sonar plus CHIRP ClearVü scanning sonar as well as the Garmin quick draw contours mapping software that lets you create and store maps.

Priced at less than $200, this may be one of the more feature-rich cheap fish finders around. Its built-in GPS lets you mark waypoints, create routes and allow you to view the boat’s speed. It is just a 4.3-inch display, but it is a portable model and copes with bright sunlight while having what is described as an intuitive user interface.

This model also has a rugged design which means that it can cope with every fishing environment.

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Deeper Smart Sonar Pro

When it comes to portable cheap fish finders that link to cell phones, there is the Deeper Smart Sonar Pro, which comes with Wi-Fi connected wireless and it compatible with iOS and android devices with a universal waterproof cell phone case.

It is castable model designed to float on the water surface and scan the entire bottom and water column, measure depth, temperature, bottom structure, and mark fish, then stream all information instantaneously to your smartphone or tablet.

This model can be used for all styles of fishing including from the shore, kayak, boat, river, fresh and salt water and float tube fishing, according to the manufacturer.

It is portable but it also has a wide range of 330 feet. It will mark anything up to half an inch in size in water up to depth of 260 feet and the user gets instant detailed information of the underwater structure, fish location, bottom contour, depth, water temperature, underwater vegetation.

Even with its affordable $200 price tag, this unit can create bathymetric maps of your local waters with Boat Mode, and analyse them on your PC via Lakebook, the Deeper’s Data management software.

This is small but ultra-light device and can come with a range of extended features. For example, higher scanning resolution separates objects in a distance up to 0.04 feet and allows you to capture smaller underwater units and an extended dynamic range enables more accurate detection of those objects. All to provide a precise underwater image.

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iBobber ReelSonar Wireless Bluetooth Smart Fish Finder

Available for less than $100, the ReelSonar Wireless Bluetooth Smart Fish Finder is the most affordable of the cheap fish finders on our list. It works with iOS and android cell and comes with patented sonar fish identifier technology, a rechargeable battery and charge status indicator light.

According to the specifications it has 10 hours plus of battery life and gives accurate sonar readings down to a depth of 135 feet. It consists of two snap swivel connections for use as bobber or as remote fish finder.

You can also choose raw sonar or fish tagging views and the depth tagged fish icons are color coded by size while also providing waterbed and structure contour mapping as well as GPS spot tagging with an interactive map.

This model allows you to log trips by date, time, and location, as well as water temperature, conditions, type of fishing, lure, number and species of fish caught and it has optional social media share features.

It has been designed with portability and flexibility in mind so anglers of all skill levels and types could take the latest in portable sonar fish finding technology with them on the go. It can be used on the shore, from docks and used in salt and fresh water. Because of its size it is described as being ideal for kayak users.

The free app syncs via Bluetooth Smart to the iBobber device, and allows you to map waterbeds, mark spots, log water temps and depth, add lures, species, and photos in the trip log. The high contrast design and the app’s anti-glare setting increases visibility in bright outdoor lighting.

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Humminbird 410160-1 PIRANHAMAX

For those of you looking for cheap fish finders but want a quality screen, the Humminbird 410160-1 PIRANHAMAX has a 4.3 inch color display and promises a sharp image thanks to a richer pixel matrix – all for less than $150.

It has a down imaging capacity to 320 feet and a dual beam capacity of 600 feet. The down imaging sonar helps to separate fish from vegetation. The fish alarm has three size options, large, medium and small, and it has a battery alarm and a depth alarm.

This may be an affordable device, but its display has an LED backlight which the designers say gives excellent readability in direct sun or if fishing at night. It includes a tilt swivel mount for the actual unit and a transom mount for the transducer. For the control unit there is also the option of an in-dash mounting kit.

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