Hi all!,

I just got my first fish finder for my boat and am in the process of setting it up properly. I have heard that you should set the gain to manual and increase it until "clutter" fills the screen then back it down a little to have it set correctly. My question is, when set properly, how much "clutter" should I see in the screen? A moderate amount, a small amount, or none?

Thanks in advance for all help!

There is no "one" setting, you adjust it for different depths. Once you use it enough experience you will find a happy average setting for most of your fishing 10 - 20 feet. You will still have to back it way down for really shallow water and increase it for deeper water.

As for automatic gain, I never run it. When you start getting shallow, it may show you to be in 500 feet. It starts picking up multiple echo's (harmonics) and thinks the water is a lot deeper. It also pretty much blacks out the screen when it does this. In deeper water, automatic my not give enough gain.

Hi all!,

I just got my first fish finder for my boat and am in the process of setting it up properly. I have heard that you should set the gain to manual and increase it until "clutter" fills the screen then back it down a little to have it set correctly. My question is, when set properly, how much "clutter" should I see in the screen? A moderate amount, a small amount, or none?

Thanks in advance for all help!

When you can't find the "gain" setting, it's the "Sensitivity" setting.

The best setting to see the most without a lot of clutter is to set it show the bottom plus one echo. A lot of units can operate in "Auto Sensitivity" very well for all depths.