Tips For Purchasing A Fish Finder

If you are looking to purchase a fish finder then your choice is going to be heavily dictated by one thing, and that is price. Once you establish what you are willing to spend on a fish finder, you can start looking at which types of models are within that price range, and what types of features you will be benefitting from. Something that you need to establish from the outset is that out of the various features that you find on fish finders, some will actually assist you in catching more fish, whilst others are sheer gimmick.

If you are a beginner then the advice here would definitely be to opt for one of the more simple fish finder units that are on the market - you can move onto something more advanced when you become a bit more seasoned and a bit more aware of what you are doing. Besides, certain features on a more advanced fish finder unit will only make sense to you when you have the sound aggregate knowledge that only experience affords you. It makes no sense to pay for an expensive fish finder unit outright, when you are not going to benefit from any of its more advanced features.

A feature that dictates the price of a fish finder is the screen. Whilst a more economical unit will have an LCD (liquid crystal display) screen, more costly finders have CRT (cathode ray tube) screens. Whilst CRT screens are the better of the two, they require far more power and add nothing to a fish finder's ability to locate fish. Therefore, if you can afford the outlay and the cost of running it, then by all means get a fish finder with a CHT screen, but as a beginner or an average weekend fisher an LCD unit will more than suffice.

Also important, in terms of the screen, is finding a unit whose screen is visible in direct sunlight. Believe it or not, there are units out there that are extremely tricky to see in direct sunlight, which is surprising, given the fact that a fish finder is a device that is specifically for outdoor use. One tip, though, should you opt for an economy finder with a screen that is affected by sunlight, is to purchase light-reflecting film. This is available online and in specialist technology/electrical appliance stores, and is made specifically for digital screens. It will stop sunlight from impeding your view of the device's screen to such an extent.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you must know what type of fishing you are going to do, because this will dictate the frequency of the fish finder that you choose. Frequency is measured in kHz, and whilst high frequency finders tend to work better for smaller bodies of water, lower frequency finders tend to work better in larger bodies of water. So before you buy a unit, make sure you know where it is that you are going to be doing the majority of your fishing. Most people tend to start with a medium-frequency fish finder, so that they get good all-round usage. When you have been fishing for a while, and you have settled into a certain type of fishing, such as river fishing, for instance, or sea fishing, then you can upgrade to a unit with a frequency that is set specifically for the size of bodies of water that you fish.