Fishfinder Usage

[Demolitron]

Hello All,

I was wondering is anyone had a few tips on using a fish finder. I've gazed into my Eagel Cuda 168 for days on lake mead while trolling in my boat and I've come up a little discouraged. I've messed with the settings all day, and adjusted my transducer as well. I do get a defined bottom to show up and I can see the surface clutter and depth contours. I get some short horizontal lines at various depths, but more often, I get a large number of lines "stacked" through the entire depth field for a few feet then nothing. Other times, I get just a mash of lines everywhere. When I am going through the marina I see "fish arches" that look exactly like what I've seen them reported to look like, I think these are some of the large carp that hang around there. I've never seen anything close to a "haystack" of bait fish, nor a school of fish.

I would love to try Jigging but I think I need to know how to use my electronics to know how deep and where the fish are hidding. Perhaps next time I'm out I'll try and take some photos of my screen...

I've read the sonar tutorial at the Lowrance website, it was helpful but I haven't seen anything that looks like their "structure" and "baitfish" on my screen.

Thanks everyone for your help!
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[stripercraze]

Hello Demolitron,

The only info I can Give is the large arches in the marina are the cables that hold the marina in place. That is what I have been told. Some may be arches. But every time I go out I see some in about the same place. The only time you will see a true arch is when you are moving and the fish is directly under the cone of your transducer.


When you are still, The fish on my graph look like small to large lines or hook shape pictures on my screen. The lines are horizontal. Bait fish groups look like round balls sometimes. I also adjust my sensitivity to see what works best. And make sure your transducer is flat toward the bottom.Good luck hope you get it figured out as I hope to get mine figured out also. I have a reset function so I play around then if I forget I just reset.

Stripercraze
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[reellittlephish]

Don Iovino has a web site and he may have some more pointers on understanding your sonar. After checking and re-connecting all your connections....You might try this standard trick... go to 20 ft. Set your sonar on manual and turn the sensitivity up till you get 2 echoes on screen. Then turn it down a little. Move around for a while on this setting. If you get in a cove your will be able to graph some aquatic vegetation lines. Find them visually and then drive over them to see the screen picture. At this setting you should see some smaller fish on the screen if they are there and in the visual cone.

You see this is not an easy one....

"[font "Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"][black][size 1]I get some short horizontal lines at various depths, but more often, I get a large number of lines "stacked" through the entire depth field for a few feet then nothing. Other times, I get just a mash of lines everywhere"

[/size][/black][/font]As far as vagrant lines on the screen that may be some electronic interference. Make sure the transducer cable is away from the starting motor wiring and somehow isolated from starting motor battery. Experiment with different motor actions to see if you are getting electrical interference. Maybe it is also the location of your transducer on the hull is causing a bit of cavitation on the surface of the puck. Try washing the transducer with some detergent to clean off any contaminants.

If you are in Las Vegas Wash try get near a guides boat - don't fish there! - remembering courtesy and maybe you will see some striper arches.
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[Demolitron]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm going to run the Sonar off of a seperate battery to ensure that I'm not getting any EMF noise into the signal as I've noticed at high engine speeds I get some "snow" on the screen. I already have the sonar signal cable running all by iteself on the port side of my boat so I think I'm safe there. BTW, I have a fiberglass hull and an older 2-stroke outboard.

Could I still be having cavitation issues at low speed (1-3 MPH)? I think I'll try and get a photo of my transducer mounting and see if you guys would chime in with your opinions on how its mounted.

Again, thanks for the help! I hope to be out again this weekend.
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