6 Fish Finders For Jon Boats Perfect for Shallow Water Angling

You’re easing your jon boat into a quiet, stump-filled cove, the morning mist still clinging to the water. You know the fish are in here, but finding the exact drop-off or submerged log they’re holding on is pure guesswork. This is where the right fish finder transforms your day from a casting lottery into a calculated hunt.

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Key Features for a Jon Boat Fish Finder

Choosing electronics for a jon boat isn’t like outfitting a 20-foot fiberglass bass boat. Space is at a premium, power can be a puzzle, and your fishing is often up close and personal in shallow water. You need to prioritize features that fit the platform.

Look for a compact screen size, typically in the 4- to 7-inch range. Anything larger can overwhelm a small boat’s tiller or bench area. Portability is also huge. Many anglers use clamp-on transducer mounts and portable power boxes, allowing them to remove their expensive electronics for security or to use on another boat.

Finally, consider the type of sonar you truly need. While traditional 2D CHIRP sonar is a must-have, Down Imaging (DI) and Side Imaging (SI) are game-changers in the skinny water jon boats frequent. They provide picture-like images of the structure, helping you distinguish a brush pile from a rock pile with absolute clarity.

Garmin Striker 4: Top Value and Simplicity

If you’re just getting into fish finders or want a no-fuss tool that flat-out works, the Garmin Striker 4 is a legend for a reason. It’s compact, sips power, and delivers an incredibly clear picture for its price. This is the unit for the angler who wants to find fish, not spend an hour messing with settings.

The secret sauce is its CHIRP sonar, which sends a continuous sweep of frequencies to provide much better target separation than old-school sonar. You’ll see individual fish arches instead of a single blob. It also includes a high-sensitivity GPS, but not for detailed mapping. Its purpose is simpler and arguably more crucial: letting you drop a waypoint on a hot spot so you can return to it again and again.

The tradeoff is the lack of imaging sonar (DI/SI) and built-in maps. But for many jon boat anglers, knowing the depth, water temp, and being able to mark that secret honey hole is more than enough to gain a massive advantage. It’s a pure, simple, fish-finding machine.

Humminbird HELIX 5 SI: Superior Side Imaging

Imagine slowly drifting along a shoreline, scanning 100 feet out into the water on both sides of your boat. That’s the power of Side Imaging, and the Humminbird HELIX 5 SI brings this professional-grade technology into a package perfect for a serious jon boat angler. It’s a massive leap in situational awareness.

Side Imaging (SI) is particularly deadly in shallow water. It lets you find and dissect structure like laydowns, weed edges, and creek channels without ever driving your boat directly over them and spooking the fish. You can stay off the spot and make precise, targeted casts. The HELIX 5 also includes Down Imaging (DI) and CHIRP 2D sonar, giving you a complete picture of the underwater world.

This unit represents a more significant investment in both cost and power requirements. You’ll need a solid 12v battery to run it all day. But for the angler looking to break down new water efficiently and find spots others miss, the underwater intelligence provided by Side Imaging is worth every penny.

Lowrance Hook Reveal 5: Best for Ease of Use

Sometimes the best technology is the kind you don’t have to think about. The Lowrance Hook Reveal 5 is designed for the angler who wants powerful features without a steep learning curve. Its standout feature, FishReveal, is a perfect example of this philosophy.

FishReveal takes the guesswork out of interpreting your screen. It overlays the crisp fish arches from CHIRP sonar onto the high-resolution, picture-like view of DownScan Imaging. The result is an unambiguous view where fish pop out from the surrounding structure. You’ll never wonder "is that a fish or a tree branch?" again.

The unit also boasts a bright SolarMAX display that’s easy to see in direct sunlight—a common challenge in an open jon boat. Add in basic GPS plotting and the ability to create your own simple contour maps in real-time with Genesis Live, and you have an incredibly capable and user-friendly package.

Deeper PRO+ 2: The Ultimate Portable Solution

What if you don’t want to drill a single hole in your boat or deal with wiring? Or maybe you use a rental boat or a buddy’s canoe? The Deeper PRO+ 2 is a castable sonar that syncs with your smartphone or tablet, offering a powerful and completely portable solution.

You simply tie the tennis-ball-sized unit to a heavy-duty line, cast it out, and reel it in slowly. It scans the water and sends a detailed sonar and GPS mapping data directly to the Deeper app on your phone. You can create detailed bathymetric maps of your favorite small lake from the boat or even from the shore.

This approach is brilliant for its versatility. The trade-off is that you’re dependent on your phone’s battery life and screen visibility in the sun. It’s not a permanently mounted solution, but for ultimate portability and zero-impact installation, nothing else comes close.

Garmin ECHOMAP UHD 73sv: Premium Sonar Tech

For the angler with a fully tricked-out jon boat—complete with a casting deck, trolling motor, and dedicated marine battery—the Garmin ECHOMAP UHD 73sv is a top-tier command center. This unit brings the ultra-clear sonar technology once reserved for high-end bass boats to a more accessible size and price.

The "UHD" stands for Ultra High-Definition, and it delivers on that promise with stunningly clear ClearVü (down) and SideVü (side) scanning sonar. You can pick out individual branches on a brush pile or see fish hiding in the shadows of a dock piling. It also comes preloaded with highly detailed LakeVü g3 inland maps, which is a massive advantage for navigation and finding promising spots before you even launch.

This is not a unit you power with a small portable battery. Its 7-inch touchscreen and powerful processor require a stable mount and a connection to a reliable deep-cycle battery. It’s overkill for a simple pond-hopper, but for the serious jon boat angler who demands the best information, the ECHOMAP is in a class of its own.

Humminbird PiranhaMAX 4 DI: Budget Down Imaging

Let’s say you’re happy with basic 2D sonar but crave a clearer understanding of what’s directly beneath you. The Humminbird PiranhaMAX 4 DI is the perfect, budget-friendly step up. It focuses on doing one thing exceptionally well: delivering Down Imaging.

Down Imaging (DI) provides a much more detailed, almost photographic view of the bottom compared to traditional sonar. This is invaluable for identifying the type of structure you’re marking. That fuzzy blob on 2D sonar becomes a clearly defined submerged log or rock pile on the DI screen, allowing you to choose the right lure and presentation.

To keep the cost down, the PiranhaMAX forgoes GPS, mapping, and side-scanning technology. It’s a pure, vertical-viewing fish finder. For anglers who do a lot of vertical jigging for crappie in timber or who just want to confirm what they’re fishing over, this unit offers incredible value and clarity.

Mounting and Powering Your Jon Boat Finder

Getting your new fish finder installed on a jon boat requires a bit of planning. Unlike fiberglass boats, you don’t have wide, flat consoles begging for electronics. But with the right hardware, it’s a straightforward job.

For the transducer, a transom-mount bracket is the most common solution. You can bolt one on permanently, or for a less invasive option, use a clamp-on style bracket that can be easily removed. If you have a bow-mount trolling motor, most transducers can be mounted directly to the motor’s lower unit. For the display unit itself, a RAM Mount is your best friend. These adjustable ball-and-socket mounts can be bolted to a bench seat or the gunwale, allowing you to position the screen perfectly.

Power is the final piece of the puzzle. For smaller units like the Striker 4 or PiranhaMAX, a small 12-volt sealed lead-acid (SLA) or lithium battery (7-10 Ah) housed in a portable, waterproof battery box is ideal. For larger, power-hungry units, you’ll want to wire directly to the deep-cycle battery that runs your trolling motor. Always install an inline fuse on the positive wire to protect your investment from electrical surges.

Don’t get lost in the tech specs and forget the goal: to spend more time fishing effectively. Any of these finders will give you a better understanding of the world beneath your boat and, ultimately, help you catch more fish. Pick the one that fits your boat and your budget, get it rigged up, and get out on the water. The best fish finder is the one that’s getting used.