I just recently bought my first bass boat (6 weeks ago). I didn't want to spend 10's of thousands of dollars so I did some research and bought a new Tracker TX 190. I have got to say I'm very pleased with the boat. It has a 90 HP Opti-Max Mercury on it so it goes fast enough for me. I like the fact that it is aluminum and I can take it into some very sallow places!

The only issue is with the fish finder. It doesn't read the depth when I'm on plane. It constantly flashes the last depth it read before I got underway. This can be dangerous on the river side of the Lake of the Ozarks. There are many mud/sand bars that I'm not familiar with yet. I would hate to run upon one because of a false reading from the depth finder.

I've taken it back to the local dealer and had the mounting bracket moved. I thought that would eliminate the sonar noise but it didn't make it work any better. I went to another Tracker dealer and asked if anyone had experienced what I had and they told me no.

So today the dealer has my boat and is suppose to water test it.

So my question is has anyone else had this problem or I'm I just the lucky one ?

Robert

It is hard to get a depth finder to read on alum.   Even installed correctly the alum hull tends to send air bubbles to it and causes it to go crazy.  I have owned a few and the best lost the bottom around 35 mph.

if you are at planning speed by the time your fish finder shows shallow water it is already to late. Especially if the transducer is on the transom.

If it's mounted like many are mounted on aluminum hulls, it's impossilbe for it to read at speed because it's out of the water.  It's probably mounted on up on the transome, a couple of inches above the bottom of the boat.

You are not alone. I bought my TX 190 in March and noticed immediately the depthfinder was useless at anything more than idle speed. As you describe, the last reading on the display at idle speed is what stays on the display until such time as speed is reduced back to idle. It appears the issue arises from the transducer being mounted on the transom immediately behind a step on the hull. From the rear looking forward, this step extends almost across the entire beam of the hull. When you look at the mounting point, it is pretty obvious as the hull rises up on the step, the transducer comes completely out of the water. I don't know if the transducer can be mounted on the flat surface at the rear of the step, underneath and forward of the transom. I have not contacted the dealer in Orlando as of this writing.