I just installed my SI ducer and took it out to the river. I lose all depth readings at 18 mph and I get a heck of spray from it that soaks my main outboard, do I have it to low? or is this normal. My lowrance ducer is much smaller but I don’t have this issue with it.
It sounds like it may not be low enough. I had almost the same problem, dropped the ducer a little bit more and haven’t had any problems since.
Sounds like your transducer position needs to be tweaked.
If you still have a spray issue, you can solve that problem with a few wraps of electrical tape to cover that little open slot between the transducer body and the mounting bracket.
Your best bet would be to get a “puck” transducer and epoxy into the bottom of the boat. With a Y cable you run both transducers.
The advantage is you can put your big (and expensive) SI transducer high on the boat so it is mor protected (I have mine under my jackplate on my bassboat). When you get on plane the unit auomatically switches over to the other ducer that is in the bottom of your boat.
Not many guys do this and I don’t know why! For a $40 investment you get another transducer and have no spray/mounting problems and your expensive ducer is protected!!
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Your best bet would be to get a “puck” transducer and epoxy into the bottom of the boat. With a Y cable you run both transducers.
The advantage is you can put your big (and expensive) SI transducer high on the boat so it is mor protected (I have mine under my jackplate on my bassboat). When you get on plane the unit auomatically switches over to the other ducer that is in the bottom of your boat.
Not many guys do this and I don’t know why! For a $40 investment you get another transducer and have no spray/mounting problems and your expensive ducer is protected!!
I have a jackplate on my boat, it’s a lund 1900 pro v, but if I mounted the transducer below that wouldn’t I have problems with interference with my kicker motor? I am going to try to post some pics later of current way I have it rigged
here are some pics of my set and imput is appreciated
If you didn’t fish for those easy walleyes, you wouldnt need the kicker! JUST KIDDING.
SI transducers do not shoot straight out to the side(like most people think), they do shoot out but not straight out to the shore. I know mine is actually hidden up under my jackplate and it works fine.
If you wanted to go to the dual transducer mode like I spoke of above, I would move the si ducer to the center and up a little so it is not below the plane of the boat and will stop the spray. How high you can go without interference from the kicker motor I do not know, sorry.
Another point…. that expensive si ducer as you have it mounted in the pics really sticks out and is asking for a stump, dock, etc. to hit it when you are shallow.
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Your best bet would be to get a “puck” transducer and epoxy into the bottom of the boat. With a Y cable you run both transducers.
The advantage is you can put your big (and expensive) SI transducer high on the boat so it is mor protected (I have mine under my jackplate on my bassboat). When you get on plane the unit auomatically switches over to the other ducer that is in the bottom of your boat.
Not many guys do this and I don’t know why! For a $40 investment you get another transducer and have no spray/mounting problems and your expensive ducer is protected!!
Is this an option on aluminum boats? Is this a thru-hull transducer requiring hole-drilling or something else? Thanks in advance.
riverbassman you are obviously a bass fisherman. The only analogy I can give you is a Walleye fisherman is the Casanova of fisherman, able to finesse a bite, force a bite, turn on a bite when the biter was turned off. He knows how to play all aspects of the game. Now a bass fisherman is like a porn star, usually unattractive and undesirable but cares a big thick pole and can wave it around all day. LOL thanks for the advice keep them coming
I had a 2025 and I had my transducer mounted higher than you do. I had it so the bottom of the ducer was right at the bottom of the boat. That part of a lund stays in the water while on plane, and I never had any issues with mine not reading. When I switched to a Ranger it was a different story, and I had to shoot a ducer thru the hull for it to work on plane. You have the mounting board so it will be easy to try different positions to see what works best.
I am still having troubles with my set up. I moved the transducer up to match the pics of a lund set up I received from Humminbird support. the spray is better but still have some, I lose my reading right away when I give her throttle, I have been messing with the SI sensitivity contrast settings trying to dial it in but I can not get any discernible images, the only thing I could verify for sure was a major bridge pier but I couldn’t even see the rip rap along the interstate bridge on the Missouri in Chamberlain with the SI range of 70′. The thing that puzzles me is the 2D is dead nuts with my X15 graph (actually show more detail then X15).
How fast are you moving trying to use the SI?
i don’t expect or should I say require the side imaging at speeds over 5 mph. I guess I should of been more clear, I am losing all readings of depth in both 2D and imaging at speeds over 10 mph. I moved the ducer towards the center of the boat and that made it even worse. I also tried to wrap electrical tape around the bracket as suggested but that caused the ducer to flip up from the extra drag I assume. I used the unit on the lake I primarily fish this weekend for the first time this season. It is a large inland praire lake that is shallow 8′ or less in alot of areas. when I went shallow the depth jumped all over the place 1ft to 10ft. The reason I wanted the SI was to locate fish in shallow water when marking them with traditional 2D is difficult. Is that something I should just give up on? I thought in theory this unit was going to change the way I fished but no so much. I do love the lakemaster maping though.
When are you going to the river again? Ill be there for fri and Sat, if the weather holds. Glad to look at your setup and settings.
It will change the way you fish, once you get thru with the gremlins.
What is the angle from front to rear of your transducer? Should be about 5 degrees from front to rear. Dead level great arches and shallow depth reading but loose bottom at speeds. A slight tail down transducer setting better high speed readings, it is a balancing act. Once you get it tweeked you will really like it and it should work for what you want.
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When are you going to the river again? Ill be there for fri and Sat, if the weather holds. Glad to look at your setup and settings.
It will change the way you fish, once you get thru with the gremlins.
I will be at the river (chamberlain) on friday, saturday and sunday for the Allen tournamemt and would take you up on that offer for sure. I would love to get this figured out.
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When are you going to the river again? Ill be there for fri and Sat, if the weather holds. Glad to look at your setup and settings.
It will change the way you fish, once you get thru with the gremlins.
I will be at the river (chamberlain) on friday, saturday and sunday for the Allen tournamemt and would take you up on that offer for sure. I would love to get this figured out.
With the weather change, so did my schedule. I was there wed thu and fri. Sorry I missed this message
I was at Cedar Shores for breakfast this morning, in fact.
We need to get together some other place than here, that allows private messaging so we can exchange emails or cell #.
Glad to help out, but were going to have to meet somewhere.
I have everything needed to completely test your install.
I sent you a personal message with contact info on WC
Thanks Reddog but I think I finally got it!!!! I had alot of play in the transducer where the pivot bolt goes through the mounting bracket, I double checked and I had installed it as per the directions but the metal washer did not have an interior diameter large enough to fit over the trhough bolt to apply pressure to the plastic washer so I put two larger diameter washers on first then the supplied washer and was able to tighten the transducer angle in one spot. I don’t know if that is how it is suppose to be, the only down fall I can see is it will be harder for the transducer to break out of the mounting bracket if you ever fit something because of the extra tension I added but know my readings in SI are great. I also was able to get accurate speed readings to 35mph and then I lost them but still much better. We fished flooded timber (that I didn’t know was there before) and I was able to warn my fishing partner that he was about to donate another crank bait to the fishing gods as I watched the trees pop up on the SI and we donated a lot of cranks LOL. Thanks for all the help and I am sure I will have many more questions for you guys as I still haven’t figured out the Down imaging yet
Glad you finally got it figured out.
My experience with down imaging is that it really wont tell you much on a featureless bottom.( at least nothing that wont show up in your SI water column) When youre over significant structure, thats a different story.
Everything I need to see can be seen in your SI view, and when I see something in the water column of interest, I switch views to DI and 2D to see what it looks like in those views.
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well I have to start ALL OVER with my tranducer location as I just came across my dream rig today and bought it, a ranger 620 with the mercury 250xs racing division motor. But I will be removing my bird from my pro v and installing it on my ranger.
Well, At least youre “experienced” 
With that 620/250 installation very few guys are going with the transom mounted Xducer. Instead, they are opting for a thru hull HDSI and a high speed 2d with the Y cable.
How’d you do in the Classic?
R
My plans are to use the bird for SI and the lowrance 111 that is on the new boat for my 2d and high speed depth as it already has a glassed in ducer, hopefully this will work without interference.
the classic was a wet, rough mess. It is the first time I have ever fished it. We tried to go for the big boys down south on Sat but it back fired ended up only weighing 5 of the 6 fish we where allowed. We went north to Kiawa flats Sunday and caught alot of fish plugging the 15ft depth and ended up in 25th place. Better luck next time I guess, at least on the next one I will lose in style LOL
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