Humminbird Fishin’ Buddy Portable Fishfinder Review – Part 1

Humminbird Fishin' Buddy Fishfinder Review

Introduction

I’ve been fishing from rental boats at Los Vaqueros Reservoir a lot lately. It’s a tough place to fish as it is so I wanted to give myself an edge and get a fishfinder that could be easily mounted to the boat. I looked at Humminbird’s Fishin’ Buddy series which consists of four different models all designed with portability in mind.

110 Fishin’ Buddy – Down Sonar, 4.0″ 160Vx128H Display, 4 Level Grayscale
120 Fishin’ Buddy – Down and Side Sonar, 4.0″ 240Vx160H Display, 8 Level Grayscale
130 Fishin’ Buddy – Down and Side Sonar, 4.0″ 320Vx240H Display, 16 Level Grayscale
140c Fishin’ Buddy – Down and Side Sonar, 3.5″ 320Vx240H, 256 Colors

I was really intrigued by the side looking sonar and wanted a color screen as well so I chose the Humminbird Fishin’ Buddy 140c.

Unboxing

After taking everything out of the box there were about 10 individual pieces that needed to be assembled. I like to read instruction manuals completely before assembling anything. This took about 5 minutes. The assembly itself took about 20 minutes including putting in the 6 AA batteries that power the fishfinder.

First Impressions

After assembling all the pieces I put it on my digital scale which registered the fishfinder at 5.8lbs. That makes it a little heavier than a good sized laptop. I was initially concerned with how sturdy the clamp would be but after handling it a bit I could see that it was pretty solid and would probably attach to the boat adequately. That goes for the rest of the fishfinder as well. Although made of plastic it was solid and didn’t make me feel like it would melt in the sun or something.

One other concern I had was with the battery placement. It was under a cover held down by three screws. Over the cover went the display which was attached by another screw. Connectors from the battery housing then attached to the display. This doesn’t sound like much when assembling at home but if your batteries ran out of juice while you’re on the water that might be a different story.

That will definitely be something I’ll look at when taking it out for field tests in part 2 of the review. Stay tuned…