Lying?? Fish finder, hmmmmm

[Rick on Rogue]

This is a copy if a mesage that I placed on another forum, but I would like comments from anyone that has used a Humminbird 400TX.

:help:

Hey Bob, I have used the 400TX two times after our conversation. Last Sunday and today, with all bells & whistles on, I was marking fish all over the place, It looked like I was in the feeding tank at the local hatehery. I turned down the sensitivity several times and to no avail. So I went into the main menu and turned off the fish ID+. I thought the screen had froze up but the bottom and temp were still working fine. Then I noticed those little dahses ( - ) were in the same places and depths that the little fish pictures had been. Now I am getting it........... Sticks, Pumis rocks, bubbles and floating debris of all kinds (some of it suspended at variouis depths) were being interperted as sonar soundings worthy of being portrayed as fish (according to the brain of the unit). I trolled all over that lake and caught only one fish
[a nice native rainbow 18"] of which I promptly snapped a photo and put it back in to have fun with again later.
When they plant the stockers on April 22, I will be there the following Saturday, and then we will see if what the FF sees is really real or if it is just lying to me. According to my fish/catch ratio, I think the cute fish pictures on my screen are not what they seem.
More experimenting is coming. I will keep you posted.

Thanks in advance for your help. :confused:

[FishnMike]

Rick,

There are two things you must do with a fish finder when you first hit the water.

1) Take the unit off of Auto mode. You will need to adjust sensitivity and dpeth range manualy but you will get much better info from your unit.

2) Turn the fish ID feature off. The usefullness of a fish finder depends on your interpretation of the raw marks it is showing you. After time on the water you will begin to be able to tell the difference in fish size, schools of bait, single bait fish, air bubbles, trees, etc. It all just takes time on the water. The fish ID feature will generaly say that anything between the bottom and top that does not give a solid echo return is a fish.

I see you are in Oregon. Right now I would assume most of your trout are right on the surface, or at least within a couple of feet of it. At this time you're not going to see many fish on your graph. Come summer, when your lakes warm up, now that is when it gets fun.

FishnMike

[Two Ducks]

I bought a new boat several years ago and it had a fish finder on it. I put the boat in the water ie the Willy. Man I was marking fish like mad and saying to myself this baby really does the job. I went over a spot I knew was 18 feet deep and the fish finder said it was 42 feet deep. I looked at the menu and found out I was in the Simulator mode. Needless to say I got a lot of yack from my crew.:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[Rick on Rogue]

Rick,
1) Take the unit off of Auto mode. You will need to adjust sensitivity and dpeth range manualy but you will get much better info from your unit.


Mike, when you say take the unit off the Auto mode, I assume you mean that I should just scan, say the top 30 or even just the top 15 feet of water, and later on in the year go deeper. I can see where that would be the better way to go. Even turning off the Fish ID I didn't see anything on the screen that looked like a fish ( ^ ) everything that showed up were little ( - ) dash looking [lots of them] things. When in "raw sonar mode"...... OK here is my question, if a fish actually gets in to the cone, should it read like a ( ^ )?

Thanks

[FishnMike]

Rick,

The smaller the zone you are looking at, the better detail you will get. I usually crush my depth range to be about 40 or 50 feet over all. You can also start you top range limit at 5 or 10 feet because you will not see much in this zone due to surface noise and fish that are that shallow will move away from your boat.

I'm not familar with you fishfinder. Look in the manual and find out two things. 1) what is the peak to peak watts? This is the amount of power the fish finder sends out in the sonar signal. The more power, the better the reception. It will probably be 1,500 or 3,000 watts. 2) What is the pixel count on the screen? The more pixels the better the picture. This info will probably be listed something like "480 x 480 screen". If you are below 300 x 300 it may be tough to get a good picture.

Not all fish will show up as a classic ^. Everything has to be perfect for a fish to do that. He has to go exactly through the center of the cone, your transducer has to be straight and level, fish with air bladders show up better than fish without. So often salmon show up as irregular blobs.

Make sure your sensitivity is turned up as high as you can without totaly blacking out your screen. Also go through the menu and make sure the noise filters are at their lowest setting you can run them at.

Again, reading your fishfinder just takes a lot of time. Don't be afraid to play with all the settings on the water and see what happens, you can't hurt it.

FishnMike

[sparse gray hackle]

Great post FM, Thanks for the Info:bowdown:

[Rick on Rogue]

Thanks Fishin Mike, I have been and will continue to work with it. Each time out I learn something new. I will try and and try, and I will conquer this thing. Thanks for your help. I hope the big one on your screen attacks your bait and becomes a statistic.

[FishnMike]

Hope it helps a little bit Rick. Let me know about the pixel count and peak to peak power you unit has and I may be able to help some more.

FishnMike