Planning our second trip to the bwca, last year we did do so hot in the fishing department. In July during the big storm, so that probably had something to do with it as well. I was thinking this year, to help better the odds I might invest in a portable fish finder. Any recommendation would be great. I've never own a fish finder as well, I won't know what I was looking for.

I use a Lowrance Eagle FishEasy 245DS Portable purchased several years ago at Cabela's, but it has been discontinued. It is very compact and comes with a hard case that doubles as a stand. Use it mostly for depth readings and water temp. Won't go without it.
Maybe you could find a used one somewhere.

Welcome to the site, tons of great info here. If you enter depth finder into the search function you will find a couple of days worth of reading on this subject. There are lots of options but most of us go with a small black and white unit that has a very low draw rate but these units are getting harder to find as everything is moving toward color and larger screens. Once you find a unit you can also find several ways to trim weight by converting to AA or lithium batteries.

I found this review but I don’t know when it was written. Some of the detectors may be available on ebay. I would avoid used one and store demo units. List of gray-scale detectors
AA battery holder
Rechargeable battery Holder

Thank you! This lead me to look up multiple fish finder. I read a lot about the Garmin Striker 4. I think I might pick one up, and also take up ice fishing as well. Lol

MagicPaddler thanks for the post, I will have to try it out. Thanks.