whats all this extra stuff showing up on my 2d and DI, just extra noise or w/e, can it be toned down or is it just the nature of the beast in stained water is the sonar just deflecting of debris in the water? makes reading the 2d a pain at times, does my transducer need to be further in water? is yak messing with signal? im sure its not baitfish, do i need to adjust sensativity its on default at the moment, i tried adjusting it but it never made a diffrence tried it on all settings. ive seen otehr peoples with much less noise showing up on screen.


this is a under water brace cable attaching marinas, seems to be so much showing on the 2d for jsut 1 cable and all that mess above it just seems unsessesary on di and 2d


idk what that is but lots of noise again




some rocks

im new to this unit and any help would be great thanks

Cool pics. A lot of that is just surface noise which can be dialed out to some degree by messing with your sensitivity settings. Make sure that your transducer is installed properly as well. Don't be afraid to change your settings as you can always restore back to the factory settings. One great way to learn about your electronics is to hire a guide for a day that is using the same electronics. Make sure when you book the trip you let him know the purpose is to learn about your FF. it will save you hours of headaches. BTW, that last photo of the rocks has a fish holding on it.

yeah that was a cool pic i saw it too, i can read the FF pretty well jsut hate all the extra noise, i couldnt find a feature on it to turn down noise i seen it on other models maybe i just wasnt looking hard enough. the hz setting changes didnt seem to make a diffrence. so im guessing there is another feature. i think i threw away the manuel being a normal guy so i gotta learn by asking and doing.

I have an Elite 5 DSI, so I can comment a little bit on that aspect. You can adjust the contrast and suface clutter settings to tune the performance a bit. I used mine yesterday and was fairly pleased with the surface clutter on low to eliminate what I believed to be too many false returns. I haven't messed with the contrast, but looked at the manual online after seeing your post. I need to tinker with that as well, I think. If you Google your model number, the Lowrance site will come up. It has a pdf of the operations manual linked.

From my experience with other graphs, I'd suggest lowering sensitivity on your sonar display (see page 18 of the manual for your graph). It's just too high. Also looks like you were sitting still, which will distort any sonar display.

great info on the manuel printing it as we speak

You're getting more clutter than I am with mine. I have mine set on the shallow water setting fwiw. Are you shooting through the hull?

nope its on a arm over the side, im not in shallow water mode, i think i skiped the start up wizard cause i was not in the water when i first turned it on maybe that might be the problem. thanks ill check that for sure.

i have mine in general use which in the manuel seems to be for 1000ft or less costal. Shallow water is 60ft or less shallow weedy bottoms, i def need to change that setting.


i see a setting for noise rejection and surface clarity do you by chance know what you have yours set at lusca?
both have the option for low med and high and off, im sure mine might be set to off if its default. im at work or id check

I'm turkey hunting, but I'll try & check later. I know it's in shallow water mode. I've only had it out at Proctor. Not weedy, mostly rock, but seems to work well in that mode. I'm probably wrong, but I thought the other settings are for if you don't have it in one of the auto modes like shallow water, etc

im sure yours is set fine. shallow seems right for freshwater lakes compared to the other settings everything else is like 400ft and less, shallow is 60ft or less i wouldnt change it. all this acording to the manuel

Yes, it does seem to work well so far. I thought I'd have to mess with the settings more, but so far so good. I know you can adjust ping speed, too. I haven't done that either. I skipped the setup wizard & my ADD prevented me from reading all of the manual also

Great question and one that I hope more folks will be aware of when they first get their graphs. Its good to play with the setttings to get the clearest possible screen shots most of the time but the information you can get from the higher sensitivity is invaluable as well. Lots of reasons for "stuff" showing up in water column, some man made (boat traffic, hot water discharge currents) others just nature (runoff from creek pushing up sediment from bottom, wind current, presence of plankton, temperature change). Seeing this stuff and how fish/bait are relating to it can help enormously in either finding or eliminating water at times.

Hope to someday catalog different type screenshots from all of the stuff I've encountered and questioned.


screenshot above from power plant lake bridge where warmer water flows through. Look at where fish are positioned in relation to disturbed water. I wonder if its because of concrete structure only or because of wind current, lack of oxygen in upper layer of water, warmer water below, light sensitivity, lots of questions of why fish are positioned exactly where they are and what caused disturbed water and probably a combination of factors.


Baitfish getting hammered from fish below. Notice very top of screen where paddle stroke disturbs water. The bumpy bottom caused by big choppy water and kayak bouncing above, clean screen between 7 feet and bottom.


Above:
It seems its much harder to get clean shots in shallows. Almost impossible in creeks with silty bottoms, in this case a shot of drum holding bottom in very slow current.


White bass holding on deeper creek bottom.


Power boat disturbing water...plumes of churned water settling towards bottom.

Do a google search of your make and model. You should be able to find a copy of the user manual online.

i see how to fix it

Thank you for the write up iconn, very informative!