Now that I actually have a boat (bought a porta-boat at the show yesterday) I need a good portable depth finder to go with it. I've looked at the fishing buddies, but the only thing I don't like is that the cone is so narrow. Only 9 degrees, as opposed to 18-21 degrees on most other finders. I usually fish in water from 15-25 feet, so this is kind of an issue. I like the soft packs Cabela's sells with the built in rechargable battery, but they come with various finders already installed and seem rather pricey. I wonder if they sell just the pack and I can put my own finder in it.

Also, any tips on where to place a suction mount transducer?

Well, here's an idea that may help you. I had a depth finder that I wanted to make portable, so I mounted the flasher unit on the bottom side of a five gallon bucket, and put a lawn mower battery in the bottom of the bucket. I could then turn the lid over and the whole thing could be carried with the bucket handle. As far as the transducer was concerned, I ran the lead wire up through a piece of PVC pipe which I sealed with silicone seal to the top of the transducer and around the wire at the top end of the PVC. I added a couple of small diameter nylon ties to attach it to the side of my boats, and it just floated along side, tied to the gunnal rails or oar locks. Kinda looked like an oversized bobber of sorts. Worked very well, and could be manually "aimed" for checking out surrounding pockets. (Had to remember to pull it out of the water tho, for running at high speed.)

If you are into making a fashion statement, however, you may want to disregard this post.

happy fishin'

Argh! I just reread my post....error in sentence describing mounting of flasher....should read mounted it to the bottom of the bucket LID, not bottom of the bucket......Regards

I've made a number of portable depthfinders for various boats. Just about any unit can fit the bill. I used a Plano tool box and mounted a board on which I screwed the bracket. The transducer I mounted to a piece of 1x3 or 1x4 I c-clamped to the transom. Then I soldered alligator clips to the power leads. Any battery could be used. The beauty of this was, with the proper design, I could put all the parts in the toolbox, close it up, and pack it away until next time.

I don't know if Cabela's would sell the packs separately, but I do know that their small sealed batteries are on sale right now with charger. Go to the fishing/marine section of the mid-winter sale on their website.

I ran a fishin buddy 2 for several years and it worked well for lakes, the only problem I had was if you picked up the speed (trolling) sometimes the unit would start shaking and work its way up in the holder.
Banock

I think I'm just going to go with the Eagle Fishmark 320 in a soft pack from Cabela's. The price is good, and I like the high resolution. Does anyone have any experience with these units or similar ones?

Fishmark 320 soft pack

I too used a Fishin' Buddy for a couple of years, and it has one feature that I really liked, side scan sonar that you can aim. But they are a hassle, have to pull them up to run, and evenually on a rough day mine smacked into the bottom of the boat a little hard and broke. So I got a Humminbird with sidescan, which is also real cool, especially in shallow water - I get a 45 degree view to each side.

Hard to believe I ever caught fish without all the electronics