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Best GPS Fish Finder [REVIEWS & GUIDE] 2017

Fish finders are an important part of your equipment set up because they allow you to get on the Fish quickly in a lake or stretch of river you aren’t familiar with. GPS can help you get to an exact spot and also work a piece of safety equipment in the field. You should always be on the water with a GPS, and with the dropping prices of fish finders, there’s really no need to go without one.

If you’re in the market for both you’re in luck, both can be had in a single unit from extremely cheap with serviceable quality and ultra-high end set ups for professional guides. All you have to do is pick one of the best GPS fish finders that we reviewed and pre-selected.

Check Out the Best GPS Fish Finder .


Summary: Top 5 Best GPS Fish Finders

Model

Key Features

Editor’s Rating (out of 5.0)

Garmin Striker 4 Built-in GPS Fish Finder

  • 3.5” Color Screen
  • CHIRP Sonar
  • 1600ft Depth

4.4

Humminbird Helix 5, CHIRP Di GPS G2

  • 5” Color Screen
  • Dual Beam SHIRP Sonar
  • 350ft Depth

4.5

 Raymarine Dragonfly 4 Pro Navionics+ Dual Channel Sonar/GPS

  • 4.3” Full color LED Display
  • CHIRP Down Vision Sonar
  • 900ft Depth

4.3

 Garmin STRIKER 5cv with transducer

  • 7” Color Screen
  • CLEARVÜ Scanning Sonar
  • CHIRP SONAR
  • 2300ft Depth

4.8

Garmin Striker 5DV

  • 5” Color Screen
  • Down VU Sonar
  • 2300ft Depth
  • High performance GPS

4.2


Why GPS Fish Finder?

Having room on your center console can be a problem for small outboard freshwater set ups and even tiny center console bay boats. If you have a small boat to keep costs down in the first place, combining a GPS with your Fish finder is an excellent and easy way to save console space as well as cutting costs.

Most major manufacturers have models that combine both GPS units that are highly accurate and can get you to pre-saved Waypoints and navigate waterways with a base map, while also bottom mapping and searching for schools of fish.

Make sure when you begin shopping you know exactly what you want, and more importantly, what you don’t want. Many of these models come with “Features” that drive-up cost exponentially but offer little in terms of field performance in the real world. Don’t waste your money with units that have gimmicky features that you won’t actually use.


GPS Fish Finder Reviews

Garmin Striker 4 Built-in GPS Fish Finder

This is the best seller on amazon for a reason, it’s just a darn good value. Coming from the leader in GPS units, Garmin is making this combination GPS unit and fish finder with excellent features and a low-price point.

The units easy to use thank to a sunlight readable full-color display and dedicated buttons. These buttons take you to the critical screens quickly, like the GPS display and the fish finding display. Other advanced features like a CHIRP sonar transmitting at a high 77/200 kHz.

Getting through all the screens, marking good fishing spots, setting a heading to get to them and using the sonar to see if there’s fish there can be done in seconds in any weather. If the features aren’t on board you can easily upgrade them later on with the available transducer upgrades kit to get even higher performing CHIRP sonar onboard.

Pros: Extremely Good Value, CHIRP Sonar

Cons: Small Screen


 Humminbird Helix 5, CHIRP Di GPS G2

If you have a need for a large and extra bright display and dual bean sonar, this is your fish finder. Made by the boating electronics company Humminbird, this is one of their bestselling model the Helix 5. Loved by just about everyone that uses it.

This is a good model because it so easy to use thanks to the full 5” full color display. The sonar is dual beam CHIRP and is very accurate but only to 350ft. The buttons make the unit quick to navigate and everything works together to make the great technology easy to use. The base map of the unit could use work because getting use to how the waypoints are displayed takes a learning curve.

If you have the space on your console for a full-sized model, this is an excellent option with just about every bell and whistle you can think of.

Pros: Full sized Screen, CHIRP sonar, Accepts SD cards for upgraded storage

Cons: Large unit, Sonar focused product,


 Raymarine Dragonfly 4 Pro Navionics+ Dual Channel Sonar/GPS

If you’re a screen junkie, this is your model. The excellent LCD display works in concert with the Down Vision CHIRP Sonar to give photographic images of the bottom and the fish inside.  Viewing the screen is the easy because this model ha some of the best swivel mounts on the market.

The unit comes with most US lakes, rivers and major streams re loaded so when you save your waypoints you can clearly see it on the map. Any of that data can also be streamed live to your smart phone to save or share the crystal-clear bottom images form your day on the lake.

This model has some serious features that makes it easy to use the model, not to mention fun.

Pros: Excellent LCD display, Slim overall unit

Cons: Mount feels fragile in hand


 Garmin STRIKER 5cv with transducer

This is one of those units’ that really puts out all the bells and whistles. This is the bigger brother of the 4cv line up with a larger screen and secondary Sonar system that gives an almost picture perfect image of the bottom structure and any fish there is to be had down there.

The biggest asset to this unit is how easy to use it is. The screen is large enough to see both the bottom picture and the waypoint tracking at the same time. Dedicated buttons make traveling between screen easy to do while driving the boat and the full color screen is easy to see and make out data.

The other very nice feature this unit has is the CLEARVÜ scanning sonar that makes it possible to see more of what is underneath your boat. It scans laterally and downward at a higher frequency that gives better pictures of everything in the water.

Pros: Extra-large cull color screen, CLEARVÜ scanning sonar gives picture like clarity

Cons: The unit is huge hanks to the big screen


 Garmin Striker 5DV

This is an excellent fish finder with built in GPS because it has all the quality of Garmin’s other models but with slightly different features. Much like the 5cv this unit focuses more on the built-in GPS but is upgradable with high performance CHIRP sonar transducers.

What this unit does extremely well is the GPS unit. If you fish a very large lake or saltwater and fish offshore this is an excellent model because the ease of use features and highly sensitive GPS unit you have at your disposal.

If you can live mid-range Sonar but need a very good GPS this is your model.

Pros: Excellent GPS, Large Screen, Easy to use

Cons: Sonar leaves a little to be desired


Conclusion

Combining a GPS and a fish finder cuts down on clutter on the center console and can save you some cash in the long run by combining electronics and saving fuel by directing you right to the spots where the fish are.

Models like the Striker 4 from Garmin are excellent. This unit combines an excellent GPS, decent fish finder and upgradable sonar transducer should you need to upgrade the sonar later on. This is one of the best fish finder GPS combos on the market, you can’t go wrong with this unit.

More popular guides: Cheap Fish Finders / Fish Finder for the Money / Ice Flashers

The post Best GPS Fish Finder [REVIEWS & GUIDE] 2017 appeared first on A Straight Arrow.



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