Phantom marks

Last week fishing up on Devils lake my lx7 took a poop on me and luckily I brought my brothers fl12 for a back up. Now I was having solid red marks halfway up the water column. They wouldn’t react to anything I put in front of them. So I sent my camera down and couldn’t see anything. It’s been a few years from the last time I used my fl8. I think I remember phantom marks, but don’t know if I’m just telling myself that . I was fishing with two other guys that were both using vexilars and probably about 30′ feet away in each derection. Now we were fishing around 24′ of water And I would hit the rejection button tons and my battery was fully charged.

Has anyone else had phantom marks? I’m going fishing again this weekend and don’t want to go any crazier then I am.

Question, did you do a test where only your Vex was powered up? If yes, what did you see? Was your ducer below the bottom of the ice?

I’ve seen phantom marks on both my FL-8 and FL-22 that don’t react. If not interference it is either a gain type setting or something odd in the water column. I’ll bet you don’t see them this weekend if you’re not in the same location.

Didn’t test with only my vex running. Transducer was definitely below the ice. Thanks for the feedback

I have an old FL-8se and I would occasionally get marks halfway up the column. I recall reading somewhere that it is just an echo mark of the bottom when you are over a hard bottom (with gain up)…. or something on those lines. I still fish the high marks in case it is a fish. None the less, my old Vex is a champ – and still on the original battery.

If I remember correctly from when I had a Vex those marks were because you had the gain too high, you were getting a secondary echo.