Ground Fish not showing up.

[rnorman3]

Hi again, separate question...do you guys have any luck seeing ground fish like cod on your finders? I'm in about 100ft of water, I'm catching fish, but the finder shows random dots and such near the bottom, but nothing like in the book where it shows a nice bird looking figure. Perhaps I'm too deep? I have a 431s.

Thanks!

 

[dingbat]

Re: Ground Fish not showing up.

What the book doesn't tell you is that an arch is an exception, not the rule. The stars and moon need to align to display an arch.

Even if the fish is large, they are 100 feet below you. They would appear as little dots if you could see them at all. Not any different on a full scale screen. Zoom the bottom and you have a chance of seeing an arch, if the star and moon are aligned.

The dual beam transducer isn't going you any favors either. The dual beams sends out both frequencies then uses software to construct a picture of what it "thinks" it saw. I prefer to conventional sonar where the unit returns the actual targets signal and lets me decided what it is.

 

[rnorman3]

Re: Ground Fish not showing up.

Thanks on this one too dingbat. I have another transducer, a P66 which came with a Furuno LS6100. It is dual frequency 50/200Hz. But not dual beam I guess... This part - P66 is also listed as an option for the Garmin 431s, I tried to plug it in but it has a different plug. Do you think the P66 would give me a better reading? If so do you know if there's an adapter or something I can get to hook it up to my 431s?

Thanks!

 

[dingbat]

Re: Ground Fish not showing up.

Your giving up a LS6100 with a P66 for a 431S with a dual beam transducer? Tell me it's not so?

I'm running a Furuno 585 with an Airmar B164 thru hull.

The P66 would work very well on that unit. No adapter available, but Airmar has the schematic for the P66 connected to a Garmin unit. http://www.airmartechnology.com/uploads/wiringdiagrams/91_604.pdf

Splice Garmin connector to P66 cable and your good to go

 

[rnorman3]

Re: Ground Fish not showing up.

That's excellent dingbat, exactly what I needed.

As for the LS6100, I had it running with the P66, at the same time with the 431s on it's dual beamer. I could see more bottom detail/fish blips I guess, on the 431s(where I know there were fish). I had the LS6100 set to all different options, no difference, the bottom was showing nothing. I'm sure the sensors were both oriented the same way and not interfering with each other, pretty sure. Maybe the color screen was helping..

Also the 431s says it will have 500W with a dual frequency transducer, where the LS6100 has only 300W.

HOwever now that I have pictures of the connectors (attached) it looks like the P66 has 5 wires in it, but possibly that's just in the connector...hopefully only 3, I'll have to cut it to see.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Ground Fish not showing up.

Looks like they short changed you on the Garmin connector. Same connector, not enough pins installed. You'll lose speed and temp w/o the other wires. See if you can purchase a new connector from Garmin. If not, check Airmar or digi-key electronics.

No problem getting a good picture at with 300W. Your "detail" on the 431 was probably coming from color. Besides that, the 431 is not using the same data as the 6100 so you can't do a side by side comparison. Furuno are not the best machines in auto. To get the most out of them you need to run manually. It took me a while to figure out, but I have no problem picking up flounder on the bottom. Have to turn the sensitivity down now or then or the jelly fish in the water column overwhelm the screen.

 

[rnorman3]

Re: Ground Fish not showing up.

OK, well you convinced me to give the LS6100 another try. I'll put the transducer back on it and head out again. I'll have 3 fish finders on board this time and hover over an area with fish to compare them. I'll read the manual and take the time to adjust the settings manually. I'll try to take some pictures of the setup and screens and post them here. Perhaps if you have time you can then re-comment again.
Thanks!

 

[83mulligan]

Re: Ground Fish not showing up.

You need to be careful to not have the same frequencies operating on different fish finders at the same time. They will interfere with each other and you won't get good comparison.

 

[rnorman3]

Re: Ground Fish not showing up.

Will do, thanks guys.

 

[rnorman3]

Re: Ground Fish not showing up.

Hi all, just a follow up on this one. I cut the wire from the P66 transducer, spliced it to the garmin 431s according to a schematic I got from the airmar site and presto. I could clearly see my 5oz lure in salt water all the way down to 100ft. However something to note, the 431s is not a dual frequency unit as advertized and described in the owners guide from Garmin! I contacted Garmin and they agreed to switch out the unit for me with a dual frequency unit - the 421s. Perhaps they'll also fix their manuals...

 

[dingbat]

Re: Ground Fish not showing up.

Now that wasn't so hard. Congrats.:victorious: