I took my boat out for the first time and was getting weird readings from the depth sounder on my unit. It was reading accurate depths at the ramp and in the cove by the ramp, but once I started leaving it was contiuosly give shallow depth alarm and the water was way deeper than what it was reading at 1.5-2 ft.

I was wondering is this a setting that I need to adjust or is it something more?

mines mounted up front and transducer is on trolling motor . check and make sure the transducer didnt move on the mount , it should sit parallel in the bracket . also check your settings on it and see how its set up in the settings screen . mine only does that when i get in shallow water and once i move out of that area it keeps reading right . i thought the same thing when i first seen it but i stuck my rod tip in the water it was pretty well right on what it was reading and had never read wrong on the screen ,hopefully that helped .

I just turned it on and checked the settings, it was set to 20ft depth. If the water is deeper could it cause it to do that. The transducer is set up parallel to the bracket. I know it was deeper than what it was reading. I also let my son tube some behind the boat and he fell out and couldn't touch bottom and he is 6'1 and the unit was giving a 1.5 foot reading.

My guess is that you have a bad 'ducer. Clean off the bottom of the 'ducer and then set your depth setting to auto. If it still reads 1.5' in deeper water then try swapping the 'ducer if you can borrow one. Alternatively, you can swap out the head unit. If the new head unit still shows a wrong depth, then you know it's the 'ducer.

Thanks Long Mike I will try that.

Could be a bad ducer, but if you haven't already, be sure to select Shallow Water (for fishing less than 100 feet) under Fishing Mode in the Sonar settings.