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Speed and sonar ? How fast can you get sonar returns.


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How fast can you get high speed sonar reading’s with a shoot through transducer?

 

i think I have something going on with mine  I can only get my 2d returns up to about 20 mph. This is a in hull transducer in a Phoenix bass boat. When the boat was new last year I can remember the 2d sonar working a couple  times up to about 50 mph. I checked to see if it came loose but it seems solid. Maybe it just needs to be re set in a different place? 

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I would re cement the TD to remove any doubt. Next check your chart settings back to original.

Tom

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10 minutes ago, WRB said:

I would re cement the TD to remove any doubt. Next check your  settings back to original.

Tom

I’ve reset factory default on the Humminbird with the same results. 

My next move is to try to remove the transducer and clean everything and re epoxy it.

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It’s a ping rate chart speed, the factory setting should be the default.

Tom

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39 minutes ago, Born 2 fish said:

How fast can you get high speed sonar reading’s with a shoot through transducer?

 

i think I have something going on with mine  I can only get my 2d returns up to about 20 mph. This is a in hull transducer in a Phoenix bass boat. When the boat was new last year I can remember the 2d sonar working a couple  times up to about 50 mph. I checked to see if it came loose but it seems solid. Maybe it just needs to be re set in a different place? 

Sorry to hear you're having some challenges with your electronics.

Personally, I hate that.

Mind if I ask why you want or feel the need to read the bottom depth while your rig is on plane ?

Are you looking for fish at 50 mph ?

A-Jay 

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6 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

Sorry to hear you're having some challenges with your electronics.

Personally, I hate that.

Mind if I ask why you want or feel the need to read the bottom depth while your rig is on plane ?

Are you looking for fish at 50 mph ?

A-Jay 

Not looking for fish at 50 mph mostly looking for structure like weeds on sand flats or rock in grass areas. Little humps and ditches there’s all kinds of things to find if you look  I’d be extremely happy with great returns at 30 mph.

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On 10/26/2024 at 10:22 PM, Born 2 fish said:

Not looking for fish at 50 mph mostly looking for structure like weeds on sand flats or rock in grass areas. Little humps and ditches there’s all kinds of things to find if you look  I’d be extremely happy with great returns at 30 mph.

I do that with my rig as well, but at clutch speed; 5 mph at most. 

30 mph is 44 ft per second so with the transducer near the stern,

once our unit records that 'little hump', and we see it on you graph,

in 3 seconds, it's is already several boat lengths behind us.

Time to circle back to make sure we saw what we think we saw. 

I get that covering/graphing new water, especially big new water is time consuming.

But IMO, to do it right, a slower approach may be more effective.

Good Luck.

A-Jay

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If you really want reliable high speed sonar readings, get out of the bilge.

 

Get a Stern Saver, or equivalent.  Epoxy it to the transom of the boat and mount a skimmer to that.  XNT-9-20T for my Helix 12.  Now you have an adjustable transducer mount.  When you epoxy one in the bilge, no adjustment.  Get the aluminum bracket, not the plastic one.

 

I run about 1/4 inch below the hull line and have a very good signal, depending on water conditions, to about 45 MPH.  Still get a usable reading at 60.  Seldom go faster.

 

Every once in a while, I'll kick it up on wood.  I re-did the transducer mount and moved the toothed washers.  I just lay on the back deck and push the transducer back to where it goes. 

 

I've been running this way since I bought my first Skeeter in 2002, and will never have another shoot through.  Another advantage, you just get better returns when the transducer is in the water, not shooting through some unknown thickness of fiber glass.

 

I have multiple rants scattered on various sites on this subject.

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I like A Jay's line of thinking and this above one. My skimmer on my old HDS gen 2 I could read up to 60mph. Was it helpful, not in the least. Only thing it ever helped with was let me know me relative depth but at 60, running a flat before running up the river or on the CA delta, it wouldn't do much. You can't get a pic going that fast.  Wanna cover water and graph, put it on pad at 20mph, but then that's still not gonna give you the best. Pick an area, graph it. Pull up your lake chart before you get there.  Find the area you wanna look at and break it down. 2hrs of graphing @ 5mph will give you more knowledge the running 30mph across the lake . I've never found anything at 30+mph I saw and wanted to fish let alone took my eyes off where I was headed to graph at 30mph let alone at higher speeds.  Not the safest practice and an easy way to become a statistic.

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I think it may depend on the brand.  I had Lowrance in my previous boat and it would read at any speed.  It was also in this boat when I bought it.  It would also read at any speed.  When I switched to Humminbird it would only read to about 30 mph.  I had the Lowrance ducer taken out and the bird put in its exact location.  Now it will read to 40 but no faster.  But like stated you really aren’t going to see much unless you are idling remembering that what you see on 2d is history not current.

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I've had Humminbird units all my life and had no problems with high speed reading.  With fiberglass boats ( transducer epoxied inside ) I could read at over 60 mph.  Now with an aluminium boat and a transducer outside, I read the bottom as fast as I can go ( 55 mph).  It's a question of transducer size and placement.  Your transducer has probably come unglued.

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@mcipinkie, I use the Stern Saver also and am quite satisfied with it.  One definitely has to be aware of it in stumps and brush.  I destroyed one a few years ago backing it into a stump.  However, similar to @A-Jay, I  scope water at slower speeds.

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My Lowrance Totalscan transducer reads effectively as fast as my boat goes.  Which is a lighning quick 34 mph. :jaw-drop:

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Most of how fast you can get a reading depends on proper setup and how fast the processor is in the LCD unit.  A skimmer Xducer on the back of the transom set at the perfect depth and angle is a must.  If the depth it's cutting the water is wrong, it's going to get aeration (bubbles passing under it). 

In my Javelin I ran an in dash, Lowrance Gen1 HDS-5 on it's own skimmer Xducer.  I could fairly reliably get depth readings (that's depth only) up to approximately 45mph.  Faster than that and the processor was too slow.   My in dash flasher I had in it before installing the HDS-5 would work at 60 mph.  The HDS 5 would read depth at faster speeds but you started getting interruptions in the readout.

 

Even with everything mounted perfect, the processor speed in the unit is the main determining factor.  Some units have a flasher mode that processes faster than the chart mode and will read at faster speeds

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/26/2024 at 8:33 PM, mcipinkie said:

Every once in a while, I'll kick it up on wood.  I re-did the transducer mount and moved the toothed washers.  I just lay on the back deck and push the transducer back to where it goes. 

 

You need this:

 

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Transducer_Shield_and_Saver_Spring_Back_Bracket_Combo/descpage-TRNDU.html

 

It's a transducer mount on a spring hinge so that the transducer stays deployed until you hit something and then it folds 90 degrees.  It snaps back into place once you're done dragging the transducer over whatever you hit.  

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I think I’d the lake has a map chip for it that’s a better place to start. See stuff on the map than low speed scan and mark what you want to fish. I always try to do as much “pre fishing” from home as I can on a new body of water. Countless hours on YouTube, google maps, fishing reports, Navonics etc. 

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