Fishfinder not working?

[issamhay]

Hey guys I was on the water yesterday trying out my new Eagle Cuda 168 fishfinder but I noticed that we had no visible fish arcs appearing on the screen however the depth part and everything else was working normal.

I was thinking maybe theres 2 possible reasons, a) could it be because we wired it to a 12 volt car battery? (does it ahve to be a marine battery?) or b ) We were too shallow, we were around 10 feet. Any Input would be appreciated.

Oh and one more thing when I tuened on fish ID, it was working, but no fish arcs hmmm.

Edited July 27, 2008 by Simcoe Fisherman

[Terry]

I have never seen the fish id work right...any thing in the water like weeds dirt, bubbles, current and just water can make the fish ids show up as fish..

hooks only show up under the right conditions you have to be moving to see hooks

 

but it will show lines or blobs if tight to the bottom fish will look like a bump/rock but will have a line under it separating it from the bottom...

[POLLIWOGG]

To get those nice arcs you might have to go a little faster in deeper water.

 

I used to tip the transducer back as far as I could and track the cannon balls and sometimes a laker would follow them for a ways and show as a line.

[ccmtcanada]

It doesn't matter what battery you used...any 12 volt is fine. 10 feet of water is not really that shallow, so that wouldn't be the issue either.

 

Maybe there were no fish? (not being sarcastic). I fish in lots of areas with no fish...LOL.

[issamhay]

we were catching plenty of perch

[MrMike]

In 10ft of water on Simcoe, with it being so clear you probally wont get a lot of fish under the boat and the cone at 10ft is not vey wide, try it in deeper water

[fishboy]

we were catching plenty of perch

a fish has to actually swim through the cone to show as an arch (or the boat needs to pass right over a stationary fish)

[Greencoachdog]

With a lower end unit like that, the transducer is just a single beam and the diameter of your cone on the bottom was prooly about 2 1/2 or 3 feet.

As was stated earlier, the fish has to swim thru the cone/beam to show up on your finder. Try it out in deeper water, 30-100'.

[Bernie]

Often I find that the fish are so close to the bottom they don't show up. They appear as part of the bottom.

Last Wednesday a buddy and I caught our limit and not a fish showed up. We were in 27 ft of water.

[Greencoachdog]

Often I find that the fish are so close to the bottom they don't show up. They appear as part of the bottom.

Last Wednesday a buddy and I caught our limit and not a fish showed up. We were in 27 ft of water.

 

Nippissing! The lake of invisible fish!!!

 

The only lake I've ever fished where balls of baitfish show up on the finder with nothing beside or below them!

 

If reincarnation is true, I want to come back as a baitfish in Nippissing! You'll live a long worry free life!!!

[tjsa]

Hey guys I was on the water yesterday trying out my new Eagle Cuda 168 fishfinder but I noticed that we had no visible fish arcs appearing on the screen however the depth part and everything else was working normal.

I was thinking maybe theres 2 possible reasons, a) could it be because we wired it to a 12 volt car battery? (does it ahve to be a marine battery?) or b ) We were too shallow, we were around 10 feet. Any Input would be appreciated.

Oh and one more thing when I tuened on fish ID, it was working, but no fish arcs hmmm.

 

Sounds like it is working just fine. Battery you are using is no issue.

Like others have said, arches show up better when trolling faster, like when downrigging for lakers or salmon.

With Fish ID on, lots of stuff in the water column shows up, turn it off, and it all disappears.

I fish in depths of 6-25 ft. of water for walleye, and although my finder has the Fish ID feature on automatically, I just ignore all the smaller fish symbols. There are usually 3 or 4 sizes of symbols, I ignore all but the largest ones.

What I have noticed sometimes is when those larger symbols are appearing up off bottom, we don't catch much. As soon as they disappear, the fish are back down on bottom and we start catching them.

Does the Cuda 128 have a "bottom" feature, showing only the bottom 6 feet in the water column? That might help out a bit. My sonar has it, but I never use it.

We use sonars for depth control. We are the fishfinders. When we catch one,we make note of the depth and continue to target that depth. If we catch more, we stay at that depth. If catching dies off, we change presentations, colours, or depths.