I always thought that as technology improved, fishing would get easier and easier. While we can certainly find the fish a lot easier, I still can’t seem to get them on the hook every time. It’s still called fishing for a reason. These days fishfinder technology has improved to the point where all you need is a smartphone and a castable fish finder to sneak a peek below the surface.
If you’re like me you’ve always stood on the bank and thought: “I wish I could take all the water out and see what it looked like underneath.” Well, here we are, in 2024 and you can.
Image | Product | Details | |
---|---|---|---|
Best For Pro AnglersDeeper CHIRP Smart Sonar |
| Check Today's Price | |
Best For Professional FishingDeeper Smart Sonar PRO+ |
| Check Today's Price | |
Best For Advanced Recreational FishingDeeper Smart Sonar Pro Review |
| Check Today's Price |
The Deeper fish finders are a series of highly portable fish finders that are very easy to operate. First, install the fishing app on your phone (available on both Android and iOS). You then cast the fish finder up to 330ft (100m) away on a secondary rod. Your phone will then show you a live view of a cone-shaped area in the water column beneath the device.
Deeper’s latest offerings are now delivering some pretty extraordinary subsurface sonar imagery. That said, they aren’t for everyone. You won’t be able to use this when dry fly fishing on rivers. But if you’re shore fishing in lakes (or kayak fishing) we’ve had some pretty amazing results with the Deeper portable sonars. They are one of the best fish finder for kayak options available. If nothing else, it lets you peek below the surface and understand the number of fish and underwater typology for your next trip.
Contents
ToggleDeeper Fish Finder Product Review
Deeper CHIRP Smart Sonar
Key Features:
- It can cast up to 330ft deep with solid connectivity.
- You can use it to create your own bathymetric maps from your boat.
- You can charge it up to 80% in 45 minutes of fast charge and great battery life.
- Features precise 0.4 inch target separation.
- Compatible with Android and iOS devices with its own Wi-Fi signal.
These devices are arguably the best deep smart fish finders to get especially for professional anglers. This is because it comes with some pretty amazing features and traits that make it stand out from the rest. Believe it or not, it is the only fish finder deeper that has the ability to scan down the water to find fish up to a depth of 330ft and can cast out up to 330 ft. Furthermore, it can find fish even 6” from the surface of the water. All this capability is because it features three beam frequencies and a superior 0.4” target separation.
The beam frequencies are very instrumental when it comes to faster scanning of any area. You can choose to use the mid beam of 16 degrees or 290kHz, narrow beam of 7 degrees or 675kHz or the wide-angle beam of 47 degrees or 100kHz.
Furthermore, it is highly versatile since it is castable, wireless and portable. Therefore, you can use it to fish whether fishing offshore or onshore, in freshwater or saltwater. Moreover, there is a traditional ice flasher display that makes it an ideal option for ice fishing too. This means you can use it fish anywhere from boat fishing or SUP/kayak fishing!
It is also important to note that it supports fast-charging, capable of charging up to 80% in only 45 minutes. You can also choose to be a little patient and wait for 3o more minutes for it to get to 100%. The battery life is pretty great as well.
Deeper Smart Sonar PRO+ Review
Key Features:
- Features a built-in GPS for creating bathymetric maps from the shore.
- Comes with rock-solid connectivity using Wi-Fi.
- Can scan up to 260ft with a 0.5-inch target separation.
- Casts deeper and further while syncing with Android/iOS devices.
- Great battery life.
The Deeper PRO plus is the latest advanced model in the deeper fish finder range. The deep fish finder is wireless, therefore, castable and uses mobile technology to enhance portability. You can easily connect it to your mobile phone app via Wi-Fi sonar. You can download the app from the Play Store or App Store depending on the mobile device you are using while deeper fishing. The app will give you a real-time feed of what is happening below the surface of the water.
It doesn’t matter whether you want to go for recreational fishing or ice fishing, the deeper pro plus smart fish finder will very much come in handy. Furthermore, the portable fish finder is small enough to fit in your pockets. How great is that? This means the device is super convenient because you won’t have to drill any holes or install additional hardware on your boat to fix it.
Additionally, deeper pro plus comes with a pretty exclusive feature that enables you to clearly see the map. Furthermore, you can even pull the portable fish finder from water and use it to create a detailed map of the sea bottom. Therefore, if you’re a professional fisherman, you will find this device very handy in drawing out the map of your favourite fishing area.
It can scan ranges of up to 260ft with a depth of 80 metres. Moreover, the GPS capability is a plus for advanced fishing expeditions especially because of its map-making attributes.
Deeper Smart Sonar Pro Review
Key Features:
- It can cast up to 330ft and scanning depth of up to 260 ft.
- You can use it to create bathymetric maps.
- Helps to find fishing hotspots faster by letting you see the fish location.
- Highly versatile and wireless.
The deeper pro is yet another incredible fishing tool that an avid recreational angler. The device features amazing features that allow it to have its impeccable transmission power. Furthermore, it also features WiFi connectivity for you to connect it to your smartphone or tablet wirelessly. Moreover, the Wi-Fi connection is instrumental in enhancing the deeper fish finder’s range of transmission and scanning. Regardless of the surrounding conditions, the connectivity will remain superior, delivering an incredible range of up to 330ft.
Moreover, it has an average range of 260ft, which allows you to see any changes in depth. The amazing resolution also enables you to see objects underwater with clarity despite the size. Additionally, it also has built-in GPS capability to help you map out all your fishing locations in real-time using Wi-Fi.
It is arguably the best portable fish finder and can easily connect to your smartphone or tablet. However, you should go to the App Store or Play Store and download the mobile app to get started. The app allows you to manage everything from one place. Regardless of the prevailing conditions, you won’t encounter any problem using the fish finder.
Deeper Fish Finder Buying Guide
How Sonars Work
Before you buy your fishing sonar, you should try to understand how the device works. This is what will make the difference between an empty net and a bountiful fishing trip. To begin with, you need to understand that SONAR is an abbreviation for Sound Navigation and Ranging. It is a technology that uses the pulses of sound waves to determine the location of objects below the surface of the water. When the pulse hits an object, it reflects the pulse back to surface while measuring how long it took for the pulse to reach the object and back. Essentially, it is an eco-location system, pretty much what dolphins and bats use.
Before anything else, you need to understand five things:
- Sonars can in cones rather than lines: Since sound travels in wavers, you have to understand that the fish you see on display is from a wider area under the water’s surface and not exactly below the boat.
- Blind zones and surface clutter: This means that there are times you won’t see or detect anything just below the surface and that is what is referred to as surface clutter. It happens when water on the surface immediately reflects the waves back and maybe too fast for your sonar to process. It could be because of algae, bubbles or currents. The outcome of surface clutter is lots of sonar noise creating a blind zone. The best way to beat surface clutter is by reducing the sonar frequency, probably a narrow beam of 290kHz.
- Scrolling screens don’t mean lots of fish: You might notice the screen scrolling from left to right from your app. You should keep in mind that the screen keeps scrolling even if the device isn’t moving. The far-right displays the recent results while the left shows the oldest. You need to understand how the screen works to decipher the sonar data you receive on the app. To avoid confusing one stationary fish looking like a constant stream of fish, try and add a vertical flasher display. You can find it in the settings.
- Thicker lines mean harder bottoms: From the sonar data, you can tell the hardness and the structure of the water bottom. Therefore, you will receive weak signals for soft, low-density objects and stronger signals for hard, high-density objects. You can tell this using brightness and colour.
- Find the fish using the arches: Fish will pop-up on your screen as an arch. Therefore, when fish swim through your sonar cone, you will see a fingernail shape or arch.
What is CHIRP and how to read Deeper Chirp
CHIRP is an abbreviation for Compressed High-Intensity Radar Pulse. Essentially, this means that the sonar can show you fish that other standard sonars can’t. This is because the chirp sends a continuous sweep of frequencies instead of one single frequency at a time. Therefore, you will get more information from a chirp than standard sonars.
Fish on the display will appear as arches. These arches will vary in size with full arches representing fish moving through the full cone. You will only see thick dashes or half-arches if the fish moves partially through the one. A straight line represents stationary fish and sonar.
When you see a colour intense fish, that is a bigger fish. However, if you see dense clusters or groups of arches, this indicates a school of fish. Furthermore, there are different ways of understanding the bottom consistency and finding features, click here to learn more.
How to read Deeper PRO and Deeper PRO+
Most of the basics of how these sonars work are already covered above. Just for reiteration, you need to know if you’re scanning a narrow or wide beam, learn how to screen scrolling works and how to identify the fish and the bottom.
However, even the most advanced models don’t give 100% accurate interpretations. The deeper models use advanced algorithms to interpret the data based on several factors. Essentially, you can use fish icons or arches but for more accurate readings, we found it best to use arches. If you’re looking for more information on this we have a complete guide on how to use a fish finder here.
Conclusion
It doesn’t matter where you are going fishing from the shore, kayak or pontoon boat, the deeper fish finders in this review will be handy additions to your fishing kit. They will offer you versatility, incredible image quality, portability and many other amazing features to make fishing fun and enjoyable. Depending on your level of expertise in using smart fish finders, you can use the Deeper Pro, Deeper Pro Plus or the Deeper Chirp.