Lowrance Elite 5 ice problems - help!

[Fisherpete]

I recently bought the ice kit ($150) for my Lowrance Elite 5 so I can use it year round. First trip on the ice was to Quinte - very impressed, marked the fish clearly and had tons of fun with the flasher mode. Fished in depths up to 20' and caught my first 5 eyes ever thru the ice. Only negative from this outing - battery life seemed to be around 8 hours. Died just before the evening bite time. Picked up a second battery and plan to turn down the brightness to extend the life on future outings.

 

Second trip - to Simcoe - fished for lakers in depths from 80' to 125' and felt like banging my head off the wall afterwards. Tried for hours playing with every setting, different lures, etc. and had little to no success marking my lure or fish in those depths. Luckily I had a second unit out with me (Humminbird 718 which I have rigged up for the ice) for my brother to use and he was able to mark fish no problem at all, and caught his first laker too... which happened to be a beauty but that will be another post...

 

For the past few seasons I used a fairly basic Humminbird 525 rigged for the ice and like my 718, marked fish and lures perfectly in deep water, even smaller ones like tubes and swammers. Why are the lower powered units having no issues marking fish and lures at these depths and the more powerful signal of the Elite 5 is?

 

If I get out this weekend I plan to try the following:

 

1) Only use 200kHz - from what I have read it seems like the ice transducer will work on 83kHz but is optimized for 200kHz?

2) Set the depth range manually to 5 ft deeper than depth where I am at, zoom in to bottom 20-30ft

3) Drill 3 or 4 holes in a close area and experiment with Elite in one hole and lure down another

4) Maybe try the regular transducer from the boat if the above fails

 

I know Landry, Misfish and a few others on the board have had similar issues with their Elite 4/5's... I have looked around the internet for answers too but didn't find much. Anyone have any success or ideas?

 

Thanks - and really hope someone can shed light on this!

 

Pete

Edited January 10, 2014 by Fisherpete

[Terry]

You could try this

 

[fishfnatic]

Hey thanks Terry I just spent 10 minutes trying to post that link and couldn't lol thanks for sharing.

Cheers

Nuno

[misfish]

Ya seen that.

 

Pete,sent ya a PM.

[misfish]

Welcome Nuno. Great vid

[miller]

I set my ping speed to fastest and sensitivity to 100% also I prefer using split zoom rather than the flasher. If you press the + button you'll get 4x zoom on the left hand side and with the directional pad you can scroll to which area you want to view, usually the bottom for me.

[Fisherpete]

Thanks guys - will give it a try. Taking the Humminbird just in case lol. And welcome Nuno - great video! Anyone else going out in the slushfest tomorrow?

 

Pete

[landry]

Hey Pete. I had similar issues.

This unit is not the greatest below 80' IMO.

I got it running well enough last time to see my bait the whole time. I had an unusual amount of noise in background as I needed to creep my color line up from 80-? until the background turned to yellow fuzz while at 100% sensitivity. That did it. I also set a custom depth from 30 down to 10 feet below the depth of the water.

Manual mode. Fastest ping. And ice view worked best for me.

Personally I think nunos unit works better than mine which makes me think they have ducer probs. his works on auto sensitivity pretty much with no fiddling. I know this unit well. Mine would never worki like that. No offense intended nuno. You seem like a good guy.

I think they have transducer issues myself. As uentioned it is a great unit for 80' and shallower. Picks up micro panfish jigs in 20' beautifully.

[misfish]

 

 

As uentioned it is a great unit for 80' and shallower. Picks up micro panfish jigs in 20' beautifully.

 

LOL YUP.

 

Sad to say,I got caught up in the hype. Oh well,,watching perch chasing is fun.LMAO

[Sinker]

I set my upper and lower limits. Say I'm fishing 80 ft. I set upper limit to 40ft, lower limit to 81ft. No zoom required. Ping speed 100%, sensitivity high enough that the screen isn't cluttered, and I can mark my jig.

 

S.

[misfish]

Shane,your talking depths that we all can pick up our jigs. It,s once the jig gets to the 85+ and down,it fades away. 80 FOW and above,I have no isssues.

 

When down at 100 FOW +,I cant mark it well at all. I have to jig the bait to see it. Even then,it,s a blip on the screen.

[BillM]

Man, all I hear is people having nothing but problems with these things. I don't understand why they require such a setup. With your HB you set your chart speed to ultra and go fishing, lol.

[Fisherpete]

Colour is nice to look at... it has GPS... and most importantly - IT WAS NOT CHEAP LOL - it owes me haha

 

I do just fine with my cheapie Humminbird, and yeah no setup needed at all... was just hoping to have all season use of the Lowrance. Am baffled why it won't work well in the deeper water. Like I mentioned, with the more powerful beam you think it should be great.

 

I'm also currently doing the software update from 3.5 to 3.6 - maybe that will help too.

 

Pete

[Fisherpete]

I'll experiment with those settings too Landry - thanks - do you have the iceducer or regular?

 

Pete

[wallacio]

Are you using it in ice fishing mode? I don't own one but the consensus seems to be that it works better in deeper water when the ice fishing mode is NOT selected.

[landry]

I have the ice ducer.

I am gonna upgrade mine to the latest version too but I think it is gonna stay the same overall.

[Fisherpete]

I tried every setting and mode...

 

Did a little more reading (thanks Brian) on another site and found a few more setups to try:

 

1. Reset to factory default run set up wizard. When. Asked if ice fishing put no when asked if fishing in less the 60 fow no. Run deep water set up sensitivity 100 ping speed fastest color line 88 frequency 83 surface clarity off screen mode to ice setting you can arrange overlay data to your preferred set up I can mark a pin in 130 fow with this set up after done check setting make sure it didn't change

 

2. Make sure it is set up with these values, but ALSO, it is set up with these values following the SEQUENCE below. SETTING IN SEQUENCE IS IMPORTANT.

 

 

reset all settings:

Menu/menu/System/Restore Defaults

Run Wizard - yes

Lakes - yes

ice fishing - no

less than 60 feet - no

Advanced - yes

 

 

Menu/settings/sonar:

mode - deep water

noise rejection - off/lowest (might need increase when others around)

surface clarity - off

CHART(x67c) MANUAL MODE - YES

 

Menu:

AUTO SENSIVITY - off

Range/Custom- UPPER - 20, LOWER - a couple feet below bottom

frequency - 83 not 200

ping - fastest

 

Menu/sonar options/color/iceview

 

Menu/Adjust:

sensitivity - 100

colorline - 82/84 - lure is just starting to turn blue

 

chart(X67C) - fastest

 

Make sure the following settings:

 

Menu/AUTO DEPTH RANGE - off

Menu/Menu/System/Advanced Mode - yes

 

 

After you are done with the above settings, double check all of them and make sure none of them changed. If you followed the above sequence, it should be fine.

 

The beauty of these setting were that I could run my X67c just 8 feet away from my son's ELITE 4X without a problem. Both sonars were set with the above settings and we had no problems. I could see his lures, he could see mine.

 

Lots to try... Something's gotta work!

 

 

Pete

[landry]

I used that post to help me and it did help. Not perfect but better.

[4x4bassin]

Are you fishing near another finder , I know mine acts up due to interference from the other finder in the vicinity. Other than that I have no problem seeing a 1/2 oz jig in 100 ft of water

[Fisherpete]

No, I have seen interference - I have used my buddy's ice 55 a bunch of times near other people and know what it does. We were a few hundred yards away from anyone last Saturday when I couldn't get the fish/lure to mark. 30 feet away my bro was marking all day on the 718. We'll see how she goes tomorrow.

[misfish]

Hey Pete.

 

I just want to say that I found it best today. There was no one around me,and I could mark any size jig(strongly)

 

Think that might be our issue. Fishing with the masses.LOL

[BillM]

If your unit is low on wattage, the interference from the other finders is going to ruin your day. Especially the flashers.

[Sinker]

The one I have works fine. I guess I chose a silly number of 80ft for an example, but any depth works. Picks up horizontal jigs really good, spoons tend to come and go out of the cone. A short pause brings it back.

This is an elite 5 brian, not a 4.....if that makes a difference.

 

S.

[ch312]

Man, all I hear is people having nothing but problems with these things. I don't understand why they require such a setup. With your HB you set your chart speed to ultra and go fishing, lol.

 

People are having issues with their elite 5's while my cheaper x67 shows small jigs easily at 110ft, the deepest water I've used it in. Weird

[misfish]

The one I have works fine. I guess I chose a silly number of 80ft for an example, but any depth works. Picks up horizontal jigs really good, spoons tend to come and go out of the cone. A short pause brings it back.

This is an elite 5 brian, not a 4.....if that makes a difference.

 

S.

 

 

IMO Shane,the only dif like I said,is the larger screen and gps.

 

Mine worked great today.