I've been getting an old (old) boat fixed up for fishing and am looking for some help working the Lowrance Mark 5X Pro fishfinder that I put on it.

I used it last night and everything seems to work, I just don't know what it means! What advice can you give to getting these set-up and fine tuned? My graph is filled with light grey speckles and I know I'm fishing in pretty clear water. I moved all around the lake and just didn't know what I was looking at the whole time!

Could anyone give some advice to a fishfinder newbie?

I fish freshwater where channels are not much more than 40' deep, and will be in ~15' water a lot.

Your specs could be a lot of different things. In order to make a guess we need to know more about your installation: What battery is the unit hooked to, where is the transducer, how are your wires run, are any other electronics present?

Your specs could be a lot of different things. In order to make a guess we need to know more about your installation: What battery is the unit hooked to, where is the transducer, how are your wires run, are any other electronics present?

It's an old 12V car battery that I had around. The boat is a mid-1950's 16' V-bottom with few electronics. There are bow and stern lights with a switch for night fishing and I'm planning to also hook up a Wondertroll 606 tonight. The transducer is mounter on the bottom of the transom. Pretty sure it's mounted fine because it found the bottom at full throttle well (w/ a 9.5hp motor). The wire just run along the side of the boat; the battery is near the bow.

I'm mainly looking for advice on adjusting the sonar settings on the fishfinder. I think I'm seeing a lot of noise on the screen, even when anchored with the motor off.

It's an old 12V car battery that I had around. The boat is a mid-1950's 16' V-bottom with few electronics. There are bow and stern lights with a switch for night fishing and I'm planning to also hook up a Wondertroll 606 tonight. The transducer is mounter on the bottom of the transom. Pretty sure it's mounted fine because it found the bottom at full throttle well (w/ a 9.5hp motor). The wire just run along the side of the boat; the battery is near the bow.

I'm mainly looking for advice on adjusting the sonar settings on the fishfinder. I think I'm seeing a lot of noise on the screen, even when anchored with the motor off.

This unit should run well right out of the box with factory default settings. Did you change any of these settings? If so, you can go to Menu, Menu, System, Restore Defaults. Without seeing what you are, it's hard to comment. Can you post a pic of the noise?

This unit should run well right out of the box with factory default settings. Did you change any of these settings? If so, you can go to Menu, Menu, System, Restore Defaults. Without seeing what you are, it's hard to comment. Can you post a pic of the noise?

Best picture I could get last night:

Seems to be a lot of noise at the top of the water; I don't know if this is typical. This is the first time I've used a fishfinder. After resetting the system, it did work better

Here you can see how it's in the boat.

The battery box is in front of the third seat.

Best picture I could get last night:

Seems to be a lot of noise at the top of the water; I don't know if this is typical. This is the first time I've used a fishfinder. After resetting the system, it did work better

Here you can see how it's in the boat.

The battery box is in front of the third seat.

The noise at the top is referred to as surface clutter and is normal. This clutter is typically caused by the unit reading air bubbles created by wind and wave action or boat wakes, or could be suspended plankton and algae just below the surface. Under the sonar menu there is a surface clutter filter you can adjust (low, medium, high) but I would just leave it set as off.