FishHunter PRO, The World’s Fastest Wireless Portable Fish Finder

This is a first impressions review from someone who paid full price for the product as opposed to the ratings submitted from free evaluations.First off, I have always been a shore based fishing enthusiast, far from a pro or legitimate seasoned angler, but someone who gets out as often as they can on my local waters. I have put in my time pounding the shores of my local lakes and ponds, along with miles of sand on my local beaches. I have learned to find fish well in these local waters but would love to take advantage of the promises a castable sonar unit would bring when exploring new waters. I have also recently purchased a Fish Cat 4 Float Tube, and decided a castable sonar unit would be far easier and lighter than the traditional sonar units.I settled on this particular model based on spending countless hours reading through online reviews and watching numerous youtube vids of the various iPhone sonar units available. One reason was I wanted a WiFi connection instead of Blue Tooth for the promised range and reliability. Of the competitors, The Deeper Pro was a 1 to 3 month expected delivery with no reviews and the SonarPhone did not have an app interface that appealed to me. I chose the FishHunter Pro based on it's specs to cost ratio along with attractive app interface.Please note, I intend to revisit this review and update my rating as I put more experience into the unit.The unit came packaged beautifully and contains everything you need. I will not get into the contents since that is readily available. My initial test was at a local city park I fish frequently. I will jump right into initial pros and cons.Pros- Contains everything you need to get started.- Great app interface with tons of user community bells and whistles. Almost like a Facebook of FishHunter users. Probably won't use this feature all to much.- Attractive looking unit and floats upright very well. Flashing light on top keeps the unit in sight despite the black shell coloring.- Relatively small size for easy transport and storing.Cons- Despite the size, this unit is heavy at 5.5 oz. Good luck finding a rod that's slated to sling that much weight. After stops at 3 local fishing shops, I couldn't find anything that wasn't an expensive deep see or surf casting rod. I compromised with a heavy baitcasting rod even though it's max lure weight was 1 1/2 oz. This is a big deal as it will greatly effect the distance you can cast this unit. On my Heavy rod and 40 lb. braid, I only had the confidence to cast about 20 feet, and it will create a giant splash. If there was fish in the area before casting, they likely skedaddled after the cannonball hits the water. Using a baitcaster and spool thumbing, you may be able to "feather" the cast for a lighter touch down, but it will limit your distance.- 4 hour initial charge time. I hope I never deplete my battery on a multi day camping trip. I may be forced to run my car that long to re-charge.- Plastic eyelet - This is a big concern to me. Heaven forbid it smacks a boulder or gets dropped right at the eyelet. Good bye $200.- Connectivity - I did experience some intermittent connection drops, especially at the further reaches of my deplorable 20 ft. casts. This was more of an issue with my first few test casts and I had to reconnect a few times. When I started to settle down and concentrate on an area, the readings were great, but this could be a problem if you will be casting to various places frequently.- Reading fish - In Raw mode, I saw what often times looked like fish readings. Flipping over to Fish mode, nothing. Probably need more experience on my part.So far weight and connectivity has been my biggest issue when casting from shore. One thing I began to note was I was spending an awful lot of time casting and viewing the FishHunter instead of picking up my fishing rod and fishing. To maximize my catch rate as a shore fisherman, I'm typically a run and gunner. I use a lot of seek baits that I know will get hit to scout an area and if I don't get hit, I move on and cover more ground. I hope the FishHunter Pro will aid me in this style, but I feel the unit will really become a value when I begin fishing from my float tube. With the slow speed of flipper kicking, and the ability to tether the unit to the float tube, I really think the usefulness will open up. This will be one of my next tests.One thing I cannot seem to shake is the feeling of, I should have waited and saved my money for the 3D version. One part of me feels it's too expensive for my needs and is overkill, but the other part feels the 3D bottom mapping is a far more valuable tool than the actual "fish finder". After all, if you find the structure, you'll find the fish. I kind of wish I had more than 30 days to evaluate to make that decision.Hopefully this was helpful to others in my position and I promise to update with further tests.Update after Float Tube test 6/3/2016:Since writing this review I have taken the FishHunter Pro out on my float tube on two separate outings. The sonar unit worked far better for me tethered to my float tube than my attempts at casting from shore. The only disconnect I encountered was when I removed the unit from the water to untangle my fishing line during a catch. That is something you will have to deal with if you float the sonar unit out the full 15ft. length. With this length, you will deal with wind and currents moving the unit around. I overcame this by shortening the tether line with a rubber band. The readings were great and I was marking fish all over the lake. Catching the fish is of course a different story! I have not encountered any issues with battery life with the unit and found my iPhone battery charge will deplete twice as fast as the sonar's battery. I will need to learn to conserve the battery life of my phone by not having it on constantly. For the ease of use and functionality for float tubing, I am adding a star. My next test will be using the FishHunter in the salt water harbors near my home.

I bought the FishHunter PRO to use on my Kayak. It was fairly easy to get it up and running and worked perfectly at first. The only issue I experienced were false readings in a little choppy water. After the 4th use, I noticed that I was starting to loose connection with the sonar quite frequently. On the 5th use, I was not able to keep a connection long enough to do anything and charged it to see if maybe it was not fully charged and tested it out and it just did not come on at all. I inspected the sonar unit and noticed some very small cracks in the top portion at the seam between the bottom and top portions of the unit and also could see water droplets inside the unit. I only used this unit while fishing in a stationary spot on a tether line that came with the unit. It was never cast from a pole or dropped or hit by anything, so the only reason for the cracks that I could determine were due to sun damage. I would hope that something that cost almost $200 would be a bit more durable. When I contacted customer support, if that is what you would call it, it took over a month to get a response. They asked for pictures of the unit which I sent immediately. They stated that after inspecting the unit, it appeared to have damage due to misuse. I explained that the unit was never misused and explained my theory on the sun damage. They asked for more pictures. Have not heard back from them as of yet and it has been months. Would not recommend buying this product on customer service alone, never mind the craftsmanship of the sonar. Disappointing to say the least...

Absolute monstrous pain in the rump. I formerly has the Fish Hunter Military (little orange ball), and after one season on the ice that stopped working all together, so claimed the warranty and upgraded to this one. After a couple days fishing on the ice with it, here are my overall ratings and thoughts--Reliability of wifi connection- 1/5Reliability of device- 2/5Features and usability of device when functioning- 5/5Overall: Good device if you're in a house and can get a solid wifi connection to it. The features are unmatched for ice fishing, and rival traditional flashers and ice fish finders, even beating some of the ones I have used/encountered in the past.Negative firstIt pops up on the wifi list pretty quick. Now with the wifi. Not sure what the issue is, but I was testing a couple different phones, and on my older Motorola Razr M, Android 4.4, the Pro connected fairly well, and by well, I mean 75% of the time. And not to mention, it disconnects anytime you get 5-10 yards away...fairly consistently. I also tried a newer Kyocera Hydro View, Android 5.1, and the thing would not connect to the wifi. It would say connected, then disconnect about ten seconds later. Obviously not at all helpful.As with the Military grade, occasionally, when moving around the lake, which is a more than couple minute process, allowing the Fish Hunter to reset, I'd put the Pro in the hole, only to find it won't light up, so through my bag I go digging for my reserve phone power bank to give the thing a dang jump start. Then when put in the hole, it would get going.Picks up a lot of interference the military grade didn't when you walk on the ice around the hole. Not sure what that's about, but the Military grade bluetooth one did not have those issues.Lastly, have had issues getting it to charge when plugged in. Confusing. It charges after a while, but sometimes does not want to respond at all.PositiveWhen the Pro is running and connected to the phone via wifi, it is an excellent ice fishing finder, minus that interference I spoke of. It is way quicker in response time compared to the military grade, and did not have any blocks of time where it would freeze or lag. I was fishing medium to jumbo-ish (9-12") perch in below 0 temperatures in 50+ feet of water in Montana, and with the power sensitivity turned all the way up, the Pro was picking up my small Swedish Pimples and Jigging spoons pretty well, especially when a fish would come near. Didn't miss a bite once the darn thing started working. For micro jigs, I didn't have an issue with those disappearing from the flasher until about 30 ft of water, also an upgrade from the Military grade, as I would lose sight of any lures much quicker. Don't have a house, so blowing snow and slush, turned ice on top of the Pro didn't cause any issues. I would advise keeping the hole under the Pro completely slush free, as it seems the slush causes intermittent interference ratings. Battery life is excellent on the device. For your phone, especially if you don't have a heated house, just do your best to keep it warm/have a power pack, because cold weather will demolish the battery life on any smartphone.I strap a handwarmer to my phones and keep them inside my arctic suit at all times, unzipping the top of my suit to see the readings. For moving it around hole to hole, as I do, I advice a plastic slush scoop, so you don't have to freeze your hands grabbing it and don't have to worry about a metal scoop jacking up the sonar. Not sure if it works like that, but don't want to test it.

Fantastic! Read the manual and it will blow you away.I have had this thing for a year and couldn't get it to connect the first night, I didn't even look at until yesterday and thought 'hey, let's give it another go'. I read through the manual, followed the instructions and was able to do everything and more than I had hoped. It reads depths to be practically bang on, allows you to map you lake and follow your tracks, mark fishing spots...this thing is wonderful.I have used it for trolling and will be taking it with me every time now. I cannot remember what I paid for it, but right now it looks like it is selling for $200 and that is damn bargain for what you get.

Good product for fishing. Used it ice fishing and shore fishing.

Worked O.K. first time out. Not very well next time. Completed online Warranty request form a couple times and yet to hear back from Fishhunter.Anyone know a number to call? Online form appears to work and states the will get back in a few days but no contact thus far? Been over a month.

Great product! Used it for some hard water fishing so far and it marked fish and the jigs very well up to a depth of 20 meters. Looking forward to using for a long time to come!

I don't know if I just got a dud but mine keeps giving me false readings and alway have to reconnect and reset the app. Don't cheap out and get the deeper