Installing fish finders on kayaks in the past use to involve a lot of planning and drilling holes in the kayak, modern kayaks now nearly eliminate the need to drill. The newly released Jackson Liska is a great example of how this kayak’s design makes it so easy to install a fish finder.

So I’m going to describe how I installed the Raymarine Dragonfly fish finder on my Liska. Tools needed are:  1” hole saw, 11/64 drill bit, a #2 phillips screwdriver, a jewelers’ screwdriver, and a 5/16 socket wrench. Besides the Dragonfly, I also had a thru bulkhead wire cap and the Jackson Kayak Transducer Kit. As the Liska has a hinged center hatch that covers the transducer scupper hole I decided to mount the Dragonfly in that location. There is even a gear track on the center hatch if you desired to use a RAM ball and the RAM Surface Mount.

I opted to use the mount and hardware that came with the Dragonfly. This meant that I had to drill three holes using the 11/64 drill bit using the base as the template. I will point out that the mounting bolts are a little long so I replaced them with similar bolts that are only ¾ of an inch long.

Next I positioned the transducer through the transducer scupper and secured the transducer in place using Jackson Kayak Transducer Kit. I do prefer to power my unit using the 10 amp Nocqua Battery so I used the connector kit by Nocqua to attach to the power cable of the transducer cable.

Next I drilled a one inch hole into the top of the hatch behind the fish finder, I ran the connector through the hole and used a thru bulkhead wire cap to make the completed project to look nice and neat. There does appear to be a gap on the hatch lid to run the connector without drilling but I do feel that this could create the risk of the rubber covering that protects the actual wires to actually cut or wear through the covering.

Next I coiled the excess wire cables and used cable ties to keep the bundle neat. I can store the cable bundle, the Nocqua battery, a rod holder, and a small anchor in the hinged center hatch. As you can see that the Liska provides a simple solution for mounting the fish finder of your choice with minimum effort.