It’s nice when a company recognizes kayak fishing and does something about it. Humminbird, a Johnson family company (Minn Kota and Ocean Kayak also), has come out with a complete fishfinder system. The kit consists of their model 385ci fishfinder/chartplotter. It’s a color unit with 320V by 240H resolutions. There’s a card slot for upgraded charts from Navionics.  It’s a nice unit for kayak use. What’s great is the company has put everything you could possibly need into the kit. It comes with a 7 amp battery and charger, and even the end connectors for the battery. There’s a transducer installation kit that’s simple and easy to install. The instructions are very good and everything you need is included. It only took a few minutes to install the transducer in my Torque. It’s a slick setup; my compliments to the folks at Humminbird. They’re obviously paying attention. I recognize there are many anglers who don’t want to do any installs but this is so easy. You still need to drill some holes to mount the unit. I decided to put it on a RAM mount. I didn’t have the proper base plate, so I made one out of a piece of cutting board.

As to the unit, it took me a little bit of time to figure it out since I was use to a different system. It was easy to use though. The connectors were really nice and the power unit comes with a cap. What I like is I can’t see the connectors rotting (like Eagle/Lowrance) and there isn’t any chance of bending pins while hooking it up either. The unit also comes with a nice hard cover to protect the actual screen and controls during transport or when not in use. There's also a protective cover for the unit stem. All nice features.

Another neat feature is Humminbird has an optional scupper hole transducer. You can send in your standard transducer and th ey'll exchange it for the through hole unit. You’d only want to do so if you have an Ocean Kayak model that has Transducer Compatible Scupper. I know the Tridents and Torque do as does the Prowler Big Game and later model Prowler 13. The recessed area keeps the transducer from harm for most situations however in rocky areas it’s going to get beat up. The neat thing is you get accurate water temps since you’re not shooting through the hull.  I put one in my other OK kayak, a Trindent 13. It works well and I haven't beat up the transducer either. When I land I just make sure the kayak lays on the port side so the transducer isn't on the ground.

The kit retails for $499 and the unit without the kit is $399. So in the kit you’re paying an additional $100 more for a dry bag, transducer mounting kit, connectors, 7 amp battery and charger. You could save a few bucks putting everything together yourself but not enough to make much of a difference and you wouldn’t get the neat little transducer mounting kit. It’s a slick system and very easy which is hard to put a price tag on.

The folks at Humminbird get thumbs up from me for hearing us and doing something about it. They deserve our support if for no other reason then for listening. However if the product didn’t work well it wouldn’t matter. The product is a great fit for kayak anglers. They have my endorsement.