Help! fishfinder wont work on ice.

[Cal]

I tried using my fish finder while ice fishing last night and it was a horrible failure. I made a float for the transducer and got it adjusted so that the transducer was floating pretty level as well and played around with the unit but I couldnt get a good reading. I could get a little bit of interferance on the top of the screen, I'm thinking that was the ice or somthing, but it wouldnt show the lake bottom or anything else. The depth reading kept changing and fluctuated between 1.5 and 8.5 feet although the real depth was around 6'. Any advice?

[iliketrout]

Are you using your open water transducer or did you buy one specifically for ice fishing? If you changed transducers make sure that you change the settings on the finder.

Try putting the transducer lower than the underside of the ice. Sometimes the ice can cause interference.

[fishslayer420]

Originally Posted by iliketrout

Are you using your open water transducer or did you buy one specifically for ice fishing? If you changed transducers make sure that you change the settings on the finder.

Try putting the transducer lower than the underside of the ice. Sometimes the ice can cause interference.

i agree

[drifter]

Was the transducer at the top of the hole or below the bottom of the ice?

[thorne]

Don't float the transducer. You are getting feed back echoes from the sides of the hole. I connect my transducer to a foot long 3/8 steel rod and let it hang in the hole just below the ice. Gets crystal clear readings.

[spurly]

I attach my transducer to a peice of hardwood about a 18" long and straddle it accross the hole with the transducer just barely below the water. very good results.

[Cal]

I was using the same transducer as I use in open water, I had it on a float just below the water surface, a Utube video assured me that it would work, damn utube. Ice is about 3 feet deep and getting thicker, I always wondered why guys liked cameras so much but if you've got to have the transducer below the ice a camera would probably more simple to set up.

[huntsfurfish]

Ducer needs to be level. How is the power-voltage?
My fishin partner uses the open water ducer and has no problem shooting from the top of the hole. I use ice ducers on mine and rarely lower to bottom of hole. Transducer may be going also.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by huntsfurfish

Ducer needs to be level. How is the power-voltage?
My fishin partner uses the open water ducer and has no problem shooting from the top of the hole. I use ice ducers on mine and rarely lower to bottom of hole. Transducer may be going also.

The transducer looked pretty level. I dont know what you mean about the power voltage, it had a freshly charged battery though and the fishfinder is less than a year old.

[huntsfurfish]

My finders, Lowrance and bird will display voltage on the screen-through menu.
It is also possible you are getting interference from the hole as suggested though.

If you are showing low voltage, you may see odd readings.

[thorne]

another common reason for sonar units to go wonky is transducer burn out from being left on out of the water. this will provide results like just like you are describing. learned this one the old fashin way...doesn't take long. left my unit running once after taking the boat out of the water and by the time i caught it my unit was screwed.

[fish gunner]

if you own a higher end sounder it is possible you have a dual cone transducer.if so you may be able to change frequency.I use my open water transducer with no problem what so ever, my sounder has a dual cone that cannot be changed so my ducer must be below the ice.let me know how your new camera works in colored 30'+ water. JK.

[Kim473]

The transducer needs to be below the ice, just like the one on a flasher.

[cube]

I have a Hummingbird 383C? (or something like that) that I use for ice fishing and it works fine. I have the open water transducer mounted onto a rod so I can change the levels if I want to but it works below the ice or just below the water. The one thing that I have found is that turning the 83 kHz frequency off and just running the 200 kHz frequency certainly helps. Given your only in 6 ft of water you might also want to turn your sensitively down. While ice fishing I usually run my sonar manually and set it by turning down the sounder all the way and then bringing it up until I can see my lure well without allot of back ground chud.

One last point, the Lowrance I have had a transducer go on me, after 6 months, and gave me similar sounding problems especially in depths shallower than 15 feet. Got a new Transducer and now works perfect again.
Good luck

[braxxtonn]

Buy urself a fish cam, the best $100 bucks you can spend!!

[TROLLER]

Transducer has to be below the ice otherwise you get all kinds of false readings.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by cube

I have a Hummingbird 383C? (or something like that) that I use for ice fishing and it works fine. I have the open water transducer mounted onto a rod so I can change the levels if I want to but it works below the ice or just below the water. The one thing that I have found is that turning the 83 kHz frequency off and just running the 200 kHz frequency certainly helps. Given your only in 6 ft of water you might also want to turn your sensitively down. While ice fishing I usually run my sonar manually and set it by turning down the sounder all the way and then bringing it up until I can see my lure well without allot of back ground chud.

One last point, the Lowrance I have had a transducer go on me, after 6 months, and gave me similar sounding problems especially in depths shallower than 15 feet. Got a new Transducer and now works perfect again.
Good luck

My Fish Finder is Lawrence x4, I sure hope the transducer didnt go.

[trouty]

it may be the depth of ice, mine works fine a couple inches into the water with 16" of ice.