Elite 3 x problem with fish arches

Hey all, Not new to forums but new to this one. I just got and Elite 3x for $99 Thursday.. I’ve used it 3 times and got it pretty well tuned in and works great for depth and yada yada …except for fish arches.. When you run it in simulator mode they are well defined .. but when ran in user mode they aren’t.. What do I have to do to tune these in? I run with Fish Id off.. from what I found in the field it shows fish everywhere in that mode and it just isn’t so cause I’m fishing a gravel pit that is crystal clear to a depth of about 15′..and there just isn’t any fish to be seen.. Plus from what I read Fish Id mode is not accurate in the first place according to Lowrance … Thanks for any help… Jerry

Ps.. I’m running it in 200hz mode and sensitivity is about 75% .ping rate is fastest.

I had the same problem with my elite 5, turn sensitivity up to about 92 percent,then shut off the noise rejection,and,make sure your transducer is sitting right. you will have to play around with the sensitivity depending on the water depth.what this is doing is dialing in the transducer, if you are running a live well pump and other electrical goodies,it will interfere,so you may need the noise rejection on. I really like my elite 5,but for the life of me cant understand why lowrance doesnt do a better job with the operators manual,I think they believe we are smart enough to wander around on the menu page and figure it ourselves. hope this helps

LOl …thats true on the manuals .. Where at in Iowa ? I’m from Wilton.. I’ll give it a try and see if that defines it better ..I believe I have the transducer set right.. its mounted about a foot away from the motor. The bracket is as low as I can get it and the transducer is hanging about an inch lower then the boat.. and the line is about as straight as I can get it. Yeah it took me a good half hour of searching to figure out how to get the quick release mech to work. not even in the manual..

pm sent

Just a side note. Don’t get too concerned about seeing “fish arches”.

Arches are defendant on a lot of factors not related to the equipment. Boat speed, depth and proximity of the fish to the transducer will dictate whether or not it shows up as an arch, blob or line.

It’ll take some time for you to really understand what you are seeing on your sonar. There is a lot of info and YouTube videos that explain how to use and read your sonar. Definitely worth the time to research.

Yeah .. I figured that.. I did see blobs ,, but the arches ..like I said where so prevalent on the “demo ” mode ..I figured just a couple of tweeks and would see them too. Only using a 30 Lbs trust trolling motor I wouldn’t think speed would be causing that big of a deal..

This day and age you can’t expect much for $99. And I don’t .. I’m just hoping for it work a little bit better then it does… When I get all the “Operator” errors out of the way.. we will see. I read a lot of reviews and 90% are pretty positive..

Jerry Purviance wrote:

This day and age you can’t expect much for $99. And I don’t .. I’m just hoping for it work a little bit better then it does… When I get all the “Operator” errors out of the way.. we will see. I read a lot of reviews and 90% are pretty positive..

Well, actually for $99 you can expect a lot more than you would’ve even 5 years ago.

Even my HDS units don’t always show arches. For example. When I’m idling around, say 2 mph or less looking for fish, I typically see thin lines for fish. Sometimes they are slightly arched but normally just lines. A lot of times fish are on the move so most fish will look different from one another. I wish I could’ve taken some screen shots this weeke of fish I knew were walleye so versus some fish I knew were crappies and perch.

Arches are completely overrated.

You will need to be moving at a decent speed to get good arches AND the fish need to pass directly beneath you to get a real good arch. If its off to one side the arch will have a longer tail on one than the other. I would also check to make sure your transducer is mounted properly. Tilting forward is a common issue that will give you poor results. It should be perfectly level when your boat is floating in the water. This can be hard to do on the trailer, but I try and take a long level and match up the tranducer for how the boat “sits” on the trailer.

Are you running in Sonar mode or DSI? You will not get arches in DSI mode.

-J.