I’m looking for suggestions for a trolling speed sensor for fishing trout and salmon on the Great Lakes. The price on these units seems to be all over the board. I’m looking for a good quality unit that is durable and provides accurate speed info at depth. What are you experienced trollers using?
I only have experience with the depth raider as that’s what I use, as well as the other guys I’ve fished with also used. The downside is that you need to run the coated downrigger cable, but I didn’t see that as a big issue. The fish hawk doesn’t need the cable but requires the equivalent of a transducer mounted to the back of your boat. It also provides depth of the probe, which isn’t a major deal to me either as the rigger has a counter on it and that’s good enough for me.
Some guys have issues with intermittent signal on the depthraider but I have not seen that. Mine has worked flawlessly the last two years.
John pretty much took the words out of my mouth concerning the two major players in the depth probe game. Fish Hawk makes a product with a few more bells and whistles, but the Depth Raider is time tested and local, so I’m assuming most suggestions will push you that way. Biggest advantage to the Fish hawk is not having to use the coated cable but as John mentioned, needs and extra ducer and is significantly more expensive….
Now, this is just something for you to chew on… Believe it or not, I do not run any type of probe on my boat. I know that this is the exception to the rule, and a bunch of guys will probably tell you I have no idea what I’m talking about and that’s fine. Until they start showing me up at the cleaning station, I won’t worry about it. I’m on a budget and am not sponsored by anybody for anything, so every dollar I spend on my fishing is weighed heavily.
I truly believe that probes are not “THE” answer for catching trout and salmon. They help A LOT, especially when fishing deep or in wicked current, but there’s something to be said for knowing how to “read” your gear without one. Quite simply, I know what my dipsy rods and rigger cables should look like when I’m running right. Even boards will tell you a lot about the current and whats going on.
I also think that sometimes probes can hurt guys. Two main instances are:
1) Probe goes out and fisherman feels “blind” not knowing how to read his gear without it.
Number two is why I haven’t bought a probe yet
2) A boat is out fishing all day and cant get bit. Finally, something happens where they stop paying attention to their down speed and they finally do get bit but according to their “rules” they were going way too slow or way too fast.
Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard of the second situation happening. I think guys get way to stuck on what down speed HAS to be that they don’t experiment enough when they have a probe.
All that being said, probes absolutely help catch fish. Especially if you aren’t real accustomed to fishing out here. I will undoubtedly get one at some point, but not until I’ve accumulated all the copper and lead setups I want (getting very close…)
Best of luck with whatever you decide to get. If it were me, and money were no option, I’d be going fish hawk. More bells and whistles never hurt, its all just more info that you can draw from.
James- i’ve had great luck with the Fishawk X-4, but as others have mentioned, the depth raider works well for guys too. I chose the fishawk because I didn’t want to have to run the coated cable, and because Fishawk is made in Brainerd, MN with an owner that is very dedicated to customer service. He’s the “SBC” of the probe world. I’d suggest giving Travis at Fishawk a call. He’s the owner, and the guy that will answer the phone. He’s gone out of his way to help with problems i caused.
Earlier this summer, I lost my probe to the bottom of the lake the first day of a 7 day trip. After striking out on a replacement in the area, and having every tackle shop tell me their distributors were out, I called Travis and he had one shipped next day to my hotel and even took off 35% because he understands how bad it stinks to lose one on a trip.
These are great for getting speed at the ball, but as Nathan already mentioned, speed can be judged other ways as well. For me, its the temp that I’m after mostly. I move the probe rigger up and down often looking for temp breaks, etc. Often times when you’ve been trolling along with no action, then start hitting fish, it’s because you a hit an area with a different temp. Having the probe can help you stay in the right temp.
Acknowledging that the Depth Raider coated cable is just fine, until the coating fails…you have the added option of running with a non-coated cable (Torpedo Speed & Temp downrigger cable) if you elect to purchase a Depth Raider. Initial consumer response was not great until they determined that when installing, lots of folks were crimping the end too hard at the spool end to secure the cable to the spool which caused the center copper signal conducting strands to short out against the stainless steel outer strands. If secured otherwise, reports are it works great. I will likely try the Torpedo cable rather than replace the coated cable when it wears out. Overall I’m happy with my Depth Raider.
I run a Depth Raider also. Not a lot to add as a whole.
Two issues I’ve experienced:
1) coating strips off a little to easily. Lose a little to much, and your reading goes a way. Small area’s can be repaired by re-coating with with liquid tape.
2) paddle wheel won’t spin. This usually happens if you bump it against something and the center pin gets bent slightly. Simple fix, replace the pin, but you won’t have any speed reading at all until it gets fixed.
As a whole, I’m one of those guys who doesn’t like to fish without a speed/temp sensor if at all possible. And if mine quits on me, I’ll generally pull most if not all the fly’s and run a spoon program, which is generally much less speed sensitive than a flasher/fly program.
Will probably give the non-coated cable a try after my current coated cable wears out. I can usually go about two years before it needs to be replaced.
Thanks for all the info guys. I think the speed probe will really help me when trolling up on Lake Superior. The currents up there can be very strong and are constantly changing. One of the keys to our program up there is to be able to position baits within 5′ or so of some pretty craggy rock structures using leadcore so speed control is important as you all know. Over the weekend we had currents changing on us hourly, or so it seemed, and that made for some tough speed control. I’m thinking the speed probe will help greatly. Right now I’m leaning toward the Fishhawk 4XD but I’ve not plunked down the coin yet.
FWIW – I ended up going with the Fishhawk 4XD and plan to get it mounted up next week. In the end my decision to go with the Fishhawk came down to the wireless data transmission (no coated downrigger cable needed) which I liked because it would allow me to use the Fishhawk and not run a downrigger.
Seeing this video made the choice an easy one for me.
Thanks for all the input guys.
http://www.fishhawkelectronics.com/marine-electronics/fish-hawk-x4d.html
I’m on the Depth Raider pro-staff so…….
I’m not sure how you can run a Fish Hawk without a downrigger? I don’t think I would want to trust a probe with a $200 replacement cost on anything else.
For me speed is way more important than temp. I’ve run into underwater currents>1.5mph and you can imagine how that would affect any presentation. I agree that it is important to be able to read currents monitoring other aspects such as dipsy bend and setting dipsy drags just this side of leaking, bubbles off rigger cable, cable angle and how your in-line planers line up. However, there is a lot more to think about when trolling so I prefer using a probe to take some of the guess work out.
Each product has it’s positives and negatives but regardless you will appreciate how much a probe helps on many days. There are days that currents will be mind boggling and you will find it hard to believe you need 3.2GPS to get 2.0 downspeed.
If I have a choice I prefer trolling into the current, sometimes for miles without turning. Rod and cable angles, planer board angles and the probe will help you find the best trolling heading to keep the whole spread working.
Grey Beard
Love the fact that it doesn’t need a coated downrigger cable to transmit data!
Looking forward to hearing how you like after you’ve used it a few times.
Oops, should have watched the video. Curious what type of rod and line would be used? Torpedos dive well but not enough experience to say how much blow back the probe would cause.
gb
Oops, should have watched the video. Curious what type of rod and line would be used? Torpedos dive well but not enough experience to say how much blow back the probe would cause.
gb
I’m going to start with an 8 oz. torpedo and go from there. I’ll have a 12 oz. version just in case I need more weight. It is hard to know the weight of the torpedo used in the video but I’m guessing at 8 oz based on size in the host’s hand.
I’m going to run 80# Sufix 832 as my main line from one of my muskie reels as a starting point. I do know that the Fishhawk uses a pressure sensor to so I won’t be relying on amount of line out to determine depth meaning a reasonable amount of blow back won’t impact performance or reduce accuracy. Marcum cameras use a similar pressure sensor and the cameras are supposed to be accurate to within 1.2 inches. If the Fishhawk is anywhere near that accurate… that’s good enough for me and then some.
I’ll be giving the Fishhawk a good testing here in a couple weeks. I’ll report back.
I suppose if you get a bunch of blowback, you could just tilt the transducer up a bit so it’s looking back behind the boat a ways rather than straight down. I’ve got a buddy that does this when fishing deep (over 150 ft) and using smaller downrigger balls.
I’ll be giving the Fishhawk a good testing here in a couple weeks. I’ll report back.
James, did you ever do a write up of your experience with the Fishhawk? I am in the market now for the same type of device and would like to hear how you rigged it and how it performed.
I’ll be giving the Fishhawk a good testing here in a couple weeks. I’ll report back.
James, did you ever do a write up of your experience with the Fishhawk? I am in the market now for the same type of device and would like to hear how you rigged it and how it performed.
I didn’t rig it last year because I knew I was going to be selling my boat. I have a new boat that will hit the water in the next couple weeks that will have the Fish Hawk on it. I’ll report back once I’ve had a chance to get some time with it on the water.
JD I bought a new boat this spring and installed a fish hawk x4d. I had a moore sub troll on last boat. It worked great, never needed to replace downrigger cable in 3 years. With about 20-25 trips a year. Didnt like the light in it.
So now with all the new technology, the wife was all about the blue tooth on the x4d so she can make logs on her phone as we are fishing. After 3 trips out it works great. The probe is very heavy duty. The screen is very easy to read from anywhere in the boat. In darkness it has 3 levels of brightness so you can change it to your liking. The temperature reading is always within .3 of the lowrance surface temperature. I like to compare the downrigger depth reading to the lowrance sonar reading. It close. Just learning but so far it was worth the extra money to me.
Pulled the trigger on a FishHawk X4 over the weekend. I decided to not the the X4+D for a few reasons. Number one was that Cabelas had just sold the last one they had in stock hours before I came in. That was probably a good thing,as it made the decision for me. I also am really not a “tech” guy and can almost guarantee I would never have used it’s bluetooth capabilities. The “depth at ball” feature would have been nice to have, but not sure if it’s really worth the extra $150 to me.
Choosing FishHawk over the Depth Raider was a no brainer for me. I fish with lots of different guys in lots of different boats. Almost everybody I know, who has a Depth Raider, has issues with it from time to time. (Mostly from the coated cable). I’ve never heard a single complaint about a FishHawk…. Also, I do not like the coated cable itself. It causes more blowback, and feels like cranking up a rigger ball that’s 5lbs heavier than what your using. Not having to replace my rigger cable was probably the biggest selling point to me. Lastly, I really like how the FishHawk shows you “surface speed” (which is different than GPS sog) and “down speed”. This really helps you figure out what the currents are doing VS just comparing your SOG to down speed.
Spent yesterday afternoon installing the unit (very easy by the way), and then scooted down to the lake for the last hour of light. I can say for sure, that this thing is gonna help me catch more fish. There was a wicked current out of the Northeast yesterday and I only had to go 1.7sog to get baits moving at 2.0at the ball in one direction. Over 3mph to get the same speed in the other. Also, caught a king and a laker in 45min,so I guess I won’t be taking advantage of their money- back guarantee…
Looking forward to using this unit more throughout the season. Its one of the biggest investments that I’ve made in my boat, but feel it should help dramatically when trolling on the big pond.
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First real trip out with the FishHawk, and she’s already paying dividends..
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Can I ask a stupid question?
Why on earth wouldn’t Garmin, Lowrance, Bird, Raymarine make a probe for this? It would eliminate the need for the extra head unit.
Can I ask a stupid question?
Why on earth wouldn’t Garmin, Lowrance, Bird, Raymarine make a probe for this? It would eliminate the need for the extra head unit.
My guess is there’s pretty limited demand. Most guys trust GPS speed and call it a day.
I get to pick up my new boat this week and the Fish Hawk will be rigged and ready to go. PUMPED!! 
The X-4 is still working great for me. These pictures were from last Saturday. Our GPS speed over ground needed to be .9-1.1 MPH to keep our baits at 2-2.3 MPH down 45 feet. The current was rippin’! Had pretty decent fishing and the kids had a blast!
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