Next-Level Marine Electronics Upgrade Lifts Skiff to New Standard

Think it’s weird to see fishfinding electronics on a poling skiff? You’ll fall off the dock when Capt. Jeff Gauthier idles up in his vintage 18 Hewes Bayfisher.

Among the myriad gizmos bolted to his 1995 lappy is a 24-inch Furuno radar antenna. On the poling platform.

Traditionalists might recoil in horror. The poling skiff, after all, is essentially an all-in-one fish-finder: The platform over the engine gives an elevated perch for one person to quietly propel the boat while watching for fish or signs of fish. The forward deck is broad and also slightly elevated to help the other person see and react to fish. Basically, you’ve got the perfect device for anglers to locate fish using their own good senses. The perfect platform to escape the digitized, electrified world. Why go mess it up?

Does Boat Size Matter?

In many ways, Gauthier’s rig is emblematic of generational changes in saltwater fishing. Today, it’s more and more common to see anglers exploring many kinds of fisheries, versus focusing on a singular target, such as bonefish or tarpon in ultra-skinny water. Bay boats of 20 feet and larger—think Pathfinder, Kenner—emerged about the time when Gauthier’s Bayfisher was popped out of the mold. Since then, bay boats have gone bigger, and skiffs have gone, well, everywhere.

Gauthier, who lives on the Florida Treasure Coast, also owns a 29-foot offshore center console and partners on a 33-footer, and thus he’s well-aware of the inherent advantages of a smaller rig. Easily towed, easily stored, for starters.

“I can tow the Hewes with my SUV, which is great on trips to the Keys,” he said. “The dually is hard to maneuver in parking lots.”

The skiff is also miserly on fuel—even maxxed out with gear and batteries, Gauthier pulls 5.5 mpg at 30 mph from an 8-year-old inline four-stroke Suzuki 140. “I downgraded top end when we went from a two-stroke,” he said. “Wide open was 52 mph, now it’s 42, but my range has really increased.”

Understood, but what about that radar? It’s a Furuno DRS4DNXT, a solid-state, 25-watt radar, Gauthier explained.

“The radar is nice—I use it for running the river at night, to help look out for markers, crab pots, boats. It’s a good visual aid for finding fish, too,” he explained. “During the day, if we’re looking for bait, I can see pelicans out one or two miles.”

“If we’re offshore, we can use it to track storms, see which way they’re going, how we can best come in.”

OK, but what about the poling platform?

“Any more these days, we don’t use the poling platform that much; honestly, I’d rather use the trolling motor to fish. It puts the radar up a bit, over our heads when we’re driving. I don’t run it while we’re fishing.”

Gauthier is 52 years old, and has been fishing out of Stuart, Florida, since age 8. On various boats, including his 29 Orion, he’s spent a good deal of time across the Gulf Stream in the Bahamas. He runs charters about four days a week.

The radar images, when he needs them, are displayed in vivid color on a 13-inch TZtouchXL TZT13X, a machine which years ago would’ve been impossible to imagine on a skiff this size.

Center Console Upgrade

Early-mid 1990s Hewes boats came with very small consoles. To accommodate modern electronics and other systems, Gauthier had a new console built to his specifications. Replacing the entire console also made it easy to update all the wiring. Flats boats of pre-Y2K vintage are today ripe for complete systems overhaul, from thru-hulls and pumps to battery switches and fuse panels. Gauthier bought his on the used market 20 years ago, nursed it over the years into fishable condition, and finally planned out a complete refit.

I know a bit about such projects, as I once owned a 1996 Hewes Redfisher, the younger but taller brother to Gauthier’s rig. Recalling the effort it took to re-wire my boat, the hours I spent with my neck cranked at funny angles, sometimes lying on my back, as I looked over Gauthier’s boat, I was envious.

Gauthier had a bit of an edge here—his day job is an HVAC contractor. He of all people knows the frustrations associated with working on machines inside cramped spaces. He did what I probably should have done—he removed that old console and had a new one built. He pre-rigged as much as possible with the console sitting up on sawhorses in the garage.

He knocked out other updates that brought back memories to me: New fuel lines, re-doing the rubrail and cap/hull overlap, spraying new gelcoat. What he did next, with the electronics, was… let’s just say, beyond me.

Wiring for the radar, satellite compass, VHF antenna and LED lighting runs through one of the aluminum legs of the poling platform, into the control cables port on the transom, and forward to the console.

Behind the radar antenna is a Furuno SCX20 Satellite Compass. This device is networked into the radar, chartplotter and autopilot to provide a number of benefits. For one, it smooths out radar imagery and echo trails. It also works with the sonar to level out the images of the bottom as the boat rises and falls on choppy seas. Lastly, it provides superior heading guidance for the autopilot.

Yes, Gauthier’s boat has autopilot! It’s a Furuno NavPilot 300. “If we have a nice day I might run offshore and find a weedline, and I can use the autopilot to hold course while we’re trolling.”

His autopilot also has a kind of anchor-lock feature: Sabiki Mode, in Furuno’s parlance. Gauthier gave a demonstration near a channel marker—holding the stern into the wind, which would be ideal for convenient filling of a livewell with the sabiki’s string of tiny gold hooks and flashy skins. Yes, a modern trolling motor can be used to the same effect, but the one-touch at the helm is handy.

Also at the helm is a flush-mount, 25W VHF radio, model FM4800, which provides DSC, Digital Selective Calling. A DSC radio offers a host of benefits, perhaps chief of which is a one-touch Distress signal. In the event of a dire emergency, stuff you’d normally articulate over VHF Channel 16—or try to articulate, given whatever calamity is unfolding—the radio automatically broadcasts. Push the Distress key and the FM4800 sends out the vessel’s identity, latitude and longitude. If you have novice crew members on a boat, in your briefing on PFDs, fire extinguishers and other safety systems, point them to the DSC Distress key. That button will reach the Coast Guard—plus light up the VHF displays of other vessels in a pretty wide range.

The FM4800 is also an AIS receiver—Automatic Identification System. That means Gauthier can see icons for vessels equipped with transmitters, know who’s who, which direction they’re headed, etc.

“We also carry a satellite phone and EPIRB in a ditch bag,” he said, as we discussed offshore safety in a skiff. “I don’t care if I’m on a big boat or small boat, we’re taking a ditch bag. You never know.”

Again, with a nod to forays into deep water, Gauthier’s Hewes has a couple of different sonar options. He rigged it with two transducers, a sidescan on a conventional transom bracket mount, and a B60 low/high transducer thru-hull mounted in the bottom.

“I use the 455 kHz CHIRP side scan a lot. We might be outside the inlet, looking for snapper or grouper spots. Inshore, I’m using it to look for tarpon, snook and whatever other fish may be laid up around bridges or mangroves.”

For background charts, he has options. “The TZVector Charts are fantastic—they came with the unit; when you buy a 13X or any XL, it also comes with TZMaps you can unlock and as a bonus, Bathyvision.”

In Bathyvision mode, small ledges and contours come into crisp, colorized detail with depth contours down to 3-inches apart. “If we’re looking for lobstering spots, this is it!” Gauthier said.

One of the cool things about the TZtouchXL series is intuitive pull-down menus for various screen functions.

On a multi-pane screen mode, with frames open for engine systems, navigation, radar, sonar or other options, a simple two-finger tap on one of the panes opens it to a full view. That’s handy for side-scan sonar, for example, which is difficult to interpret at reduced views. The 13-inch screen really puts detail at your fingertips. (By way of example, I have a 9-inch screen on my own boat, and even at full-width the side scan imaging is tough to fully capitalize on).

Twelve-volt power supply for all this fun comes out of an AGM house battery; a second AGM is reserved for starting. Both are mounted in a starboard hatch on the aft deck. A third battery, a 24-volt Abyss lithium cell for the trolling motor, is housed in the console. All three are tied into a Stealth 1 charger, which delivers charging current while the outboard is running.

Also in the console is a JL Audio system – Fusion RA770 Head with JL900 watt amp and pairs of 10-inch subs, 6.5’s and 7.7’s. Quite the sound machine.

Wave of the future? Heretical breach of tradition? Practical template for the modern saltwater angler? However you look at it, Gauthier’s super-modernized Bayfisher will get you thinking … and get you fishing.

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• This article was featured in the 2025 edition of Shallow Water Angler, a sister publication of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click for more info.