Installing a fish finder on a Native Ultimate 12

The fish finder I chose to install on my kayak was a Humminbird Matrix 12. It was about $50 more expensive than your average fish finder, but the display was a lot larger and it had the option for a GPS plug-in – a nice feature that I might add in the future.

I’ve seen a number of different ways to mount a fish finder on a Native Ultimate 12 and most involve mounting the base of the fish finder to the left or right gunwale. One thing I liked from my old SOT was having an obvious center location to mount electronics and I wanted to apply that layout to my U12. I liked the symmetry of having the fish finder in the center of the boat, and I wanted to keep the sides clear of add-ons to facilitate getting in and out.

I chose the forward cross bar for my mounting point. I removed the existing bungee cord clip and used the hole as a top-center starting point and drilled 2 others below to mount the small base of a RAM electronics  mount.  I’ve always liked these mounts – mainly because they protect the plastic mount that comes with the fish finder which can be difficult to replace if they break. The RAM electronics mount also allows you to raise, lower, and basically customize the location of the display of the fish finder. The base for the Matrix 12 is a little different than other fish finder bases that I’ve owned. It’s basically a full housing that the fish finder unit snaps and locks down into.

On the inside of the bow I used the screws from the anchor trolley to mount 2 other deck loops. Using these interior deck loops as simple tie off points, I tied the belt from a fanny pack through them and adhered the back of the fanny pack to the floatation foam with Lexel. Inside, I put the battery to the fish finder, a Cabela’s 12 volt rechargeable. It is wrapped in bubble wrap and sealed inside a heavy duty zip-lock bag. It’s easy to get to when I need to recharge it, it’s off the floor and out of the water, and it remains stationary during loading and unloading. Because it is flush against the floatation foam, there is still ample storage room beneath the bow skirt for other items.

I mounted the transducer in the stern near the skeg housing. First I sanded the floor where I planned on mounting the transducer so the Lexel could better adhere to the plastic. Then I cut the top of a plastic cup from McDonald’s to use as a dam and placed it over the sanded area. From there I just covered the floor of my kayak with Lexel, pushed the transducer down into it, and then covered the rest of it with Lexel. Allow a day or so for the Lexel to set. You can see some evidence of other hasty transducer mounts: one from a duct tape dam that simply didn’t take, and another mount that I didn’t give enough time to set.