depth raider or fish hawk?

[Line Dancin]

Ok i am wanting to put a device on the boat that gives me speed and temp at the ball. I am looking at a depth raider or fish hawk. what is the better of the two and is there any other options. For the D.R. i have walker downriggers. How hard is it to rig the DR to the downrigger?

[anthonyyost]

I am looking to buy a unit this winter as well, I am leaning to the Cannon product since it gives actual depth at the cannonball, water temp, speed and percentage of light at the given depth.

Like you, I am not sure what unit is the best though. Maybe some of the other guys can give us some tips.

[mattmishler]

we have the fish hawk 840 and we like it. ivv heard that there both good . were on our 2nd probe in 10 years witch isent bad iv heard other people that havent went threw any any in 7-8 years there pretty relieable

[plumkrazy]

depth raider all the way .three years and love it

[1mainiac]

I have a Depth Raider and mostly like it it does everything advertised and batteries last a long time. Cons with it will also apply to the Cannon as they are pretty much the same and use coated cable. Blow back is my biggest complaint and it get worse the deeper you run at 3mph and 100 dn they look like dipsey's. No way to get them down even 20lb balls blow back. With 15lb pancake weights at 100ft dn it had more blowback than my other rigger with a 10lb weight 125 dn. Next year I will not have the coated cable as if I need to know the temp that deep I will just guess. I also take em off as soon as I know what the temp is down there at least till I can get a way to get them to track and have less blow back. As for the coated cable plan on changing it often as it binds and pinches off the coating on the reels. I am now on my 4th and last coated cable from here on in if it is to deep to work on standard cable so be it. So that is the down side upside is it works real good and you don't lose it on turns and the battery lasts a long time. I have a couple of friends with the Fish Hawk units and they work pretty good but they use a 9v battery nearly every trip out and if you don't store it right the battery will be dead before you even use it. Also some fish finders don't like them as interfer with each other and when fishing deep you can lose them on turns if they get too far from the boat the same applies to blowback you can play with the angle of the sensor unit to help with blowback. But basicly it is like a fish finder it only sees fish under it if the probe gets out of the receive cone the screen goes blank. So a strong current can push it out of the signal cone.

[Paulywood]

I think that the new FishHawk is a lot better than the old units, pretty pricey though. Both the Depth Raider and Moor Subtroll are good units, I have been on boats with all three. I have also been on boats with the Cannon, thought it was alright. I think the Cannon probe is really expensive though. All of them have their pros and cons. More of a personal preference.

[Nailer]

I've read a lot of these threads (asking the same question) over the years.

From what I read most like the Depth Rader. I have a Canon, and like Mainiac says they really blow back when deep. The thing I do not like with the canon is you need to remove the battery after every use, also the attachment system is not that great. The light percentage on the Canon is nice, but it only works %20 of the time

[1mainiac]

One thing I did not mention was that I catch way more fish with the probe. I have had it 3 years I more than doubled my catch rate the first year with it. I fished the first 2 years with the same battery it made it partway into this season and was still working when I pulled it but I was getting a low battery message, I never took it out from the day I put it in till I changed it did not keep count but would bet well over 150 fish per battery. Heck the probe is in 55FOW south of Duck lake and I bet the battery is still working. I wish I had done a better job of chking the cable when I changed the battery cause it broke and I lost the probe about a week later. Even though I have had some issues with my probe setup on the I would not give it up it is single handed the best fishing investment I have made. Cause I no longer fish unproductive water blindly like many boats out there can't say how many times I have setup in a large group of boats and ran the probe only to not see good temp so I pull and fish elsewhere often catching fish while listening to them complaining that they are seeing fish but can't get em to bite. If I had to choose between the fishfinder or the probe the probe will win every time cause fishing the right temp and speed beats seeing marks every time.

Tight Lines

Jim

[tltorrice]

I also have a Depth Raider. I put it on about a year and a half ago. This past year we caught more fish than ever. It really helps you to eliminate unproductive water and target where the fish are. You are also able to identify underwater currents. I use it every time I am out for Salmon.

TT

[Line Dancin]

do you guys that have these units usually leave the probe on all the time?

do all units probes cause about the same amout of blow back?

the cable has nothing to do with blow back on the units requiring cable? basically if not using a probe do you get any blow back?

can you use any release with them? i use walker releases.

[GLF]

I am running the Fishhawk 840 head unit with the new X-4 probe. I lost track of how many hours I had on the batteries. I would like to get the new X-4 head unit.

See this post for a look at the new X-4 Unit.

[1mainiac]

do you guys that have these units usually leave the probe on all the time? The first 2 years with my Depth Raider I ran it all the time this was on my 18ft Starcraft and it worked pretty good I still had some issues with the coated cable as it would peel all the time and i went thru 3 cables in 2 years not to mention cutting back the cable to clean it up several times still was killing the fish so having to deal with it was just a inconvince

do all units probes cause about the same amout of blow back? I can't speak for all of them but mine adds a little to the blowback

the cable has nothing to do with blow back on the units requiring cable? basically if not using a probe do you get any blow back? The coated cable is 2 to 3 times as thick as normal cable yes it adds to the blowback. Kinda like comparing 30lb braid to 60lb mono I still have a lot of blowback with the probe in the box

can you use any release with them? i use walker releases.

I have ran a ton of differant releases and have had some success with all of them I am currently running modified Blacks releases above the probe and have had my best luck with this setup. But even though I have had issues with the setup and made a lot of changes the results have been great. Over all this was not a great year but I can't imagine what it would have been like without the probe.

Tight Lines

Jim

[tltorrice]

I run my probe all of the time. I had been using 12lb round cannon balls and this year switched to shark 12 balls. The blow back is less but it is still there. I just compensate for it. It does not cause me any problems though.

[Nailer]

I run my probe all of the time. I had been using 12lb round cannon balls and this year switched to shark 12 balls. The blow back is less but it is still there. I just compensate for it. It does not cause me any problems though.

Tom, where do you get the shark 12 pound balls?

[1mainiac]

Ken here is a link to them http://www.lakemichiganangler.com/store/Shark_Cannonball_Downrigger_Weights.htm

[salmonquest]

I put a cannon on this year. There were many times when I was VERY tempted to throw that thing as far as I could overboard. Some of this may be my own incompetence but I had problems with getting the probe to run correctly and track straight, the connection coming off, having the cannon ball spin and getting the probe wrapped around it and working out a release that doesn't interfere. The cannon connection is awful to say the lease but I think with a few modifications I will like it much more. If you get one I can email you the mods. I also like to run the big jon band buster which goes between the terminal end and the cannonball this seems to interfere with the wire to the probe since it also goes between. Next year I will try to rig the band buster above the terminal end. This year I just used a stacker clip above it and put the rubber band in that. All this being said when the set up did work it was great and I firmly believe it help me put more fish in the boat this year...so i wouldn't want to go out without it.

[tltorrice]

Nailer here is the link where I got the Shark 12 lb balls. The rubber coated ones were $39 each.

Sharks

TT

Edited October 18, 2008 by GLF
Fixed link.

[Line Dancin]

Thanks for all the replies after looking a bit at prices i think it is going to be the depth raider or the subtroll for price point. Now just deciding between the two of those. Outdoorsman in jenison ( just about around the block from my house) says they are going to have the subtroll at their open house for the best deal they will have all season and i really dont want to spend a fortune on one. Any other comments are welcome as i am going to be checking back.

As for sharks they make a great difference in the water and cabelas in dundee was closing them out. don't know if they have any left but the 10 lb were 15 buck and the 12 lb were 24 bucks. that was in the middle of summer i was there though. wish i had bought more of them when i was there.

[1mainiac]

I bought my Depth Raider at the Sport fish show in GR 3 years ago I went back and forth between 3 venders till I got the best price. I just told them flat out I was leaving with one so they should make their best deal I also had shopped the internet heavily. So I had pretty much everyone elses best deal as well and I went on Sun. I did the same thing this spring when I bought a couple of new electric downriggers ended up getting 2 Fishlander gold units for 600.00 with 4ft booms ball cradles and 2 rod holders ea. I will bet by this years show there will be a few shops there begging for some sales. Most of these guys would rather sell it then pack it back up cash is esier to carry then equipment.

Tight Lines

Jim

[Gare]

I have one in the bottom of LaKE Michigan near Manistee in about 800 feet of water But i think the one i had was wireless and just hooked up on a cannon ball. Then it transmitted the readings to the receiver in the boat.

[Dragon Fly]

I have one in the bottom of LaKE Michigan near Manistee in about 800 feet of water But i think the one i had was wireless and just hooked up on a cannon ball. Then it transmitted the readings to the receiver in the boat.

Say, I was wondering what brand that was. Sounds interesting being sa wireless unit.

Denny

[GLF]

Say, I was wondering what brand that was. Sounds interesting being sa wireless unit.

Denny

Denny,

Welcome to the site. Fishhawk is the only manufacturer of a wireless probe. They came out with a new unit and probe this year. The new unit is the X4. You can see and read about the new unit here. Here is some information about the new probe.