I’ve had good luck with CLR mixed 50/50 with water on the painted portion, the bare aluminum, and on the motor. You can find it at Menards for about 4 bucks. I rinse it off with water after the area is washed down. The CLR stinks so it must be good 
So I think I figured out the transducer problem –
I turned off the auto sensitivity and manually set it to 65%. Then I set the depth to 30 feet. Ping is set to max and both clarity and noise rejection are set to low. I have the transducer set to 200kHz.
I fished everywhere between 10 – 25 feet of water dragging leeches around. The screen was a bit peppered when I was in 10 feet but cleared up when I went deeper. The unit never lost bottom and worked the entire time I was out. I then set the depth to 40 feet, bumped the sensitivity up to 75% and pulled leadcore in about 30 feet of water for a while. Again the transducer never lost bottom.
Hopefully the auto sensitivity was the issue.
btw – it was really windy out and the boat (and me) were getting banged around pretty good but the fish were biting so I stayed out there messing around with the HDS depth finder till I got it to hold the bottom.
plungepool,
I may be the odd ball here but I have the Humminbird 788ci up front on the trolling motor and a Lowrance HDS 5 on the Dash. I like both units about the same. Neither are difficult to use. I can confirm the Humminbird customer service is excellent as they traded out a transducer and a few parts for free. I’ve only heard bad things about Lowrance customer service – no opinion on that yet.
I’m sure you will be happy with your new Humminbird electronics.
Thanks JDP.
That’s a great idea and I do know someone I can try this with. It may be a while till I get around to trying but I will be sure to post the results.
Thanks for the welcome everyone.
A quick story some may relate to –
Sometimes I just sit and tinker with things in the boat while it’s parked in the garage – that Lowrance manual should really be read and where better than in the boat? Look at those water spots – time to break out the Windex and clean the HDS screen (while sitting in the boat in the garage). There’s probably a screw that has loosened up on something from last weekend’s outing (it was fairly rough) and the garage is where the tools are. That rod holder isn’t quite in the right place and where better to figure out where to move it than while sitting in the boat with a rod in the holder? Maybe that anchor should be moved to one of the front storage areas to help balance out the boat. It’s easier to move that heavy anchor if the boat is sitting still in the garage. The list goes on and on with stuff I can do while ‘working’ on the boat in the garage (plus the fridge is near in case I’m in need of a refreshment from all the work I do on the boat).
Sometimes my wife will come out and ask what I am doing. ‘Working on boat rigging’ I’ll say. As she leaves I’m pretty sure I hear her mumble something like ‘dork’ or ‘geek’ or some such thing. She just doesn’t get it but at least I’m happy while working on the boat in the garage.
Good luck fishing to all!
