Several months ago the fine folks at Deeper Sonar contacted me about doing a product review on their portable fish finder. I’ve tested the unit for several months and since Christmas is coming, this seems the ideal time share the results.
It’s full name is the Deeper Smart Portable Fish Finder. It’s a little smaller than a baseball and weighs only a few ounces. It works by broadcasting a WiFi signal to your smartphone and the PRO and PRO+ models have a range of 330 feet and will scan to a depth of 260 feet. Given this, it can be cast from shore or trolled behind a float tube or boat. It’s small size and remote positioning makes it very stealthy, which I’ve found is a big advantage.
Given its stealth capability the Deeper unit can find fish in shallow water. Most of us have had fish finders before and since they have to be attached to your boat, float tube, etc. the presence of your floating device scares the fish way.
This summer and fall, I tested it from my float tube in shallow water impoundments. It instantly proved itself valuable. I put it in the water next to the float tube and established the WiFi link with my phone and it showed the water depth to be 12’ and surface temperature of 50 degrees but no fish directly underneath me—no big surprise here. However, when I let it trail about 30’ to 40’ behind the float tube (attached to a length of line) it started picking up fish, and what I saw was very interesting! No matter how deep the water was, all the trout were stratified at a depth of 6 to 7 feet. Armed with this knowledge I was able to fine tune my angling strategy, catch more fish plus lose fewer flies on submerged logs by trying to fish too deep.
As I’ve gotten older I really appreciate things that are small, light and actually work. The Deeper Unit does all these things. When I’m not using it, which in my case is most of the time, it’s not in the way. When I need some insight into the waters I’m fishing, it quickly provides information I’m after.
If you go to the online product reviews you’ll notice some people had difficulty establishing the WiFi connection with their smartphone. I followed the directions and my own experience was trouble free. However, it should be noted you need to download the app to your phone before you go out into the middle of nowhere with no cell service. Once you have the app, you don’t need cell service to make the device work as it communicates directly with your phone.
My next field test with the Deeper Unit will be on my local salmon & steelhead waters. I can’t wait to get above some likely looking water and let the Deeper unit stealthily float back behind the boat and broadcast it’s finding to my smartphone. Stay tuned.
P.S. If any Clackamas Fly Fishers would like to take mine for a test drive let me know
