New to kayak fishing... Need advice.

Hello fellow kayak fishermen... I'm extremely new to kayak fishing and will be receiving my new PA14 this weekend. Coming from a bank fishing background.  After I take care of all my safety gear and familiarization with all the functions of the "boat", I would like to purchase a gps/fish finder. Been reading some info but lost in so many models. Please help narrow my options... And of course I'm looking for bang for my buck.  Look forward in meeting and hopefully fishing with some of you guys...

Welcome to the world of kayak fishing....the madness. First its the boat, then the GPS/fishfinder, then the rod holders, then the accessories........It will get addicting and  you'll trick your kayak out in the future aka "ghettoing it out!" Again welcome. Great bunch of fellows and a lot of knowledge here

WTTM! I'm only familiar with two units so far so can only comment on them. The first is a basic model Eagle 245ds which is a black & white screen fishfinder only model. The pros for this one have been long life of 5+ years and long battery run time. I could get a long day and a half off one smaller 5ah battery. But the cons were poor screen definition=hard to identify structure or bait from fish sometimes due to lack of pixel count. Also no gps which is to be expected of models in the $100 range. Still this unit did the basics of finding and staying on structure, bait schools, marking fish, and displaying depth although not as well as a more expensive color unit.

My new one is a Humminbird 385ci combo. Having gps really helps a lot. I wish I had got one with gps five years ago. Also the color screen with higher pixel count makes it a lot easier to understand what I'm seeing. The varying colors help differentiate what's down there. Also it's much easier to tell fish from bait. So far the only drawback is a decrease battery run time and I'm currently trying to figure out how to stretch out one 7ah battery to last all day. I think it's worth the decrease in battery life to have the increased definition of a color screen. If you already have a handheld gps and also have a limited budget around $100 I think you could do without a combo ff/gps. But if you can afford it...... buy a combo even if you already have a handheld. Two gps units onboard are nice things to have when the fog rolls in. Hope this helps. jim