I fish from multiple different boats and in multiple locations throughout the year. For example, one week I'll be fishing from the family pontoon at the cabin and the next I'll be fishing from a canoe deep in the BWCA wilderness. In order to take advantage of my one and only fish locator, I've built a portable, durable and practical system that allows me to take it with me and deploy it on a variety of watercraft. The best part about this set-up? It can be built, complete with locator and power source, for around $170.00!
What you'll need:
1. If you already own a relatively compact fish locator that you'd like to use for this project, great! If not, I did quite a bit of research before purchasing and landed on the Garmin Striker 4. It's a solid unit for anyone who isn't a pro fisherperson and who (like me) is on a budget. I paid $120.00 for mine a couple years ago when it was first coming out, but it's for sale on Amazon now for $101.99. Check it out by clicking the image below:
2. The Plano ammo box, which is one of my all-time favorite multi-use utility pieces of gear. It's durable, relatively cheap, water-resistant, and lockable for a little bit of extra security. The cool part about using this size box is that it allows you to fit the whole fishfinder unit, a battery, transducer and even some extra tackle all inside for compact and easy transport. Conveniently, a 12 volt battery fits perfectly snug in the shorter direction as seen below.
It's almost as if it were made for this!
3. Power source. Nothing fancy here, just your standard sealed lead-acid 12-volt.
Get your's here.
4. I modified this suction cup kit to work with my unit, but I imagine any large durable suction cup could be adapted to work for this application.
5. You'll also need some electrical tape, or better yet some liquid electrical tape for a more water-tight seal, some basic connectors such as:
..and some basic wiring tools to strip wire and crimp connectors. Additionally, some basic wiring skills for which good instructional videos can be found by searching YouTube videos, as I did when building this.
Putting it all together:
1. Mount the base mount that came with your fish locator to the top of the box.
2. Drill a small hole near the top edge of the ammo box to feed your transducer wire through.
3. Add your connectors to your power supply wires so that you can connect it to your 12 volt battery. I used a small in-line fuse for safety against shorting out my fish finder unit.
4. Connect your suction cup to your transducer.
5. Assemble, load the extra space with your tackle essentials and then go fishing!
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