WTB Simple Fish Finder

This is probably the opposite of what most hook and liners want, but I'm curious to hear from the "Yak Pro's" what I should get to simply see depth and maybe fish. I'm not so concerned about seeing the fish on the screen, I'm more interested in structure and depth to find unmarked pinnacles and such while I'm out exploring. I know much of the PG, Pebble, and Carmel sea floor topography but I'd love to get more more acquainted with specific pinnacles and GPS coordinates of "honey holes" and "ling dens." Start making my own lists.

Any advice on something relatively cheap that would be good for this?

I had a Garmin something something.. don’t remember the model.  But it worked well for depth, no GPS, had chirp, drew very little amperage so I didn’t need a big battery to run it for the day.  It was right about $100 brand new from West Marine.  Could have kept it but I wanted GPS and every warning bell to tell me where the fish were 

Well, looks like things have changed dramatically since I last bought a FF    Since the Lowrance 4 series came out, I've pretty much stuck to them for the cost and size, and personally feel about the same as you about them, I'm more looking for depth and structure than trying to find an actual fish, like a downscan FF.  Personally i've never been able to catch a fish that I saw on the FF anyway 

Not sure if it meets your needs but I have a spare hook 5 unit I can sell you'll need to pick up a transducer though they arnt super expensive when I had to buy one last time pm me if your interested

I've been using a small black and white humminbird for years now. The head unit has held up really well, but I go through a power cable about once a season due to corrosion, even with grease and rinsing. I just get new replacement cables online.

I have a new Lowrance 3x that's collecting dust. Will trade for Alvarado St. Beers!

I have a new Lowrance 3x that's collecting dust. Will trade for Alvarado St. Beers!

Name your beer!

I probably don't know what I'm missing, but my Humminbird $100 finder has worked for about 10 years.  To prevent corrosion of the cables, after lightbulb greasing the connectors, I gooped them to the head, and it's stuck and been fine all this time. I use a donut for the transducer, and run the cables under the hatch, so I never have to disconnect the cables from the head, just disconnect from the 10 AA's in a box and take it indoors.