Sonar units driving me crazy!!!

[SKTR 20i]

The units are Lowrance 332c and 26c HD.

I recently moved to Northern California and fish the California Delta which is primarily shallow with thousands of obstructions, sand bars, grass beds, etc.

My problem is this; I am constantly losing the bottom readinig on my units when I get into shallow water, semi-heavy grass areas or even when I go from 8' to 12' suddenly. It is very disturbing when this happens since the water is typically dirty and I don't know whats under me.

I have raised and lowered to chart speed, ping speed, and even changed the screen to greyscale thinking maybe with less work for the processor to do it may hold the bottom reading better or at least recover quicker.

I am trying desperately to follow weed edges and ledges and continually lose the bottom reading and it takes forever to "recover" only to lose it again in a few seconds.

A friend of mine has a older model (X85) and his almost never loses depth reading.

I have spent all this money and am VERY frustrated with both units!!!!!

PLEASE HELP save my sanity!!

Thanks, John.

[Johnny C]

Make sure you are on shallow mode..Dirty water =lower sensitivty..Make sure you have the lastest software version.

[basstrophy]

Turn your sensitivity down to around 70%-80% this might help. Make sure only one unit is on.


All else fails turn both units off and stick your 8' flippin rod into the water and if you feel the bottom you will know how deep it is.

Keep It Wet

[SKTR 20i]

I have turned the sensitivity down to 50-60, no difference. Updates are current.

What is "shallow mode"???

John.

[Jason Milligan]

Do you have a built in transducer on your trolling motor? If you look the built in transducer on the trolling motor is placed at the head of the unit. It should be placed dead center with the shaft, like it is when you have one mounted externally. I noticed when I would move the position of my tm with the built in transducer I would lose bottom. I went back to the puck mounted externally, dead center with the shaft. Problem solved. At least I can use the built in unit as a back up should anything happen to my external transducer.

[Vince Borges]

Have you tried adjusting the depth control. Just as when you have it set at say 40' and you go into 80' you will loose bottom until you adjust the depth to match. It works the other way around to. Your graph might be set at 120' when you need to adjust it to 20' for the Delta. If your adjusting the sensitivity, and speed, that means you are in Manual mode, so to do you have to adjust the depth range.


Vince

[Johnny C]

John not sure if your unit has a fishing mode. Your 332 dosen't , but the 26 might. My 27 does, 522 does not.. You turn on unit. Page to sonar. Enter sonar features and there should be a box in the upper left hand coner that say FISHING MODE..If it does you can set this to shallow fishing.

[tunaman]

Johnny's hit it John... had to do the same thing myself. Also ended up turning the sensitivity down to 60. This was on my 26c.
[EDIT] Crap, the update is not applicable to the earlier units... must have just been the sensitivity adjustment when I was using my 26c?

On my 38c, I grabbed the beta update from the Lowrance site, as it has specifically been patched for extreme shallow water with vegetation, and that patch really helped also for that unit. Again, sensitivity down to 60.

I haven't had to do anything special with my Humminbird 1197, although I have continued to tweak the SI settings to get the best clarity.

Roger

[NoCAL]

That fishing mode is only available on the latest software update. It is version 2.4.2 . This latest update only applies to the LMS 500 and LCX 28 and above series. For your 332 unit the lastest software is 1.9.0, for your 26 HD it is 2.1.0. So you cannot get the fishing mode update for your model. I have been using it a bit on my units and it does really help keep touch with the bottom in shallow, weedy areas. Sorry for the bad news. We all are obsolete now with the release of the High Definition units. They will be obsolete next year with the release of the next best thing. Marine electronics are no different than any other electronics.

NoCAL

[G-Ko]

Tunaman, and others-

Have you had any problems with the "patch" update. I was thinking of adding that update to both my units, however i am unsure if it will run well and work as it is supposed to. That patch does say it is specifically for shallow water.

Has anyone else had any further experience with the patch updates? Has anyone had problems, or are they just as good as the regular updates. Also, can you uninstall updates?

Thanks
Greg

[tunaman]

G-Ko,

The beta seems to work really well for me here at the Delta, and resolved some major issues I had with getting and retaining bottom lock on my 38c. There's a whole host of modes listed now - not sure if they were all there before the update? The Shallow definition certainly does seem to do its job well, even in the real weedy shallows.

Roger

[fishinfool145]

Are you trying to run both units at the same time?

Don't.

[SKTR 20i]

I don't, I always go to the menu and "stop chart" on the console unit when the tm is in the water.

John.

[tunaman]

Why? I usually run all three meters at the same time. In shallow water, there isn't sufficient depth for the cones to overlap and interfere, and in deeper water it usually just manifests itself in a series of thin vertical lines, which are easy to identify and ignore.

If it really seems to be impeding bottom lock, set one for a high ping rate, and the other to a low ping rate, so the returns aren't close to hitting sync... worked for me for quite a few years now.

Roger

[NoCAL]

I do just like Tunaman too. I run both my units all the time. In deep water, I sometimes do see the vertical lines but I just ignore them. To answer somebodies previous question, the fishing modes update only came out with version 2.4. There was nothing like it in previous versions. I've had my 28HD for about 1.5 years and with the last 2 software updates it has really improved performance. Waypoint sharing, synchronized backlighting, and the improved bottom locking have all been recent software additions. Those new High Definition units look great though.

NoCAL

[macinckirk]

John time to buy new units, but wait for a few months if you go Lowrance