Grrrrr Humminbird depth reading went nuts during a tourney this weekend.

[wasilvers]

Well, my HB 798 was doing great for me. I had upgraded the software last year and didn't have any of the depth reading problems. I figured they had to have worked those out during the last 12 months and updated my software last month. When prefishing and fishing a tourney this last week, when I got to <3 ish feet of water it went nuts. Anywhere from 340 ft to 1.- BUT not every time. I tested it before I went once with the update and didn't have issues.

Maybe it is just a HB thing? I have an old model HB something or the other (bought it 5 ish year ago) and it would mess up on depths too. I even ran them separate (one off and the other on) and had problems.

This lake has a lot of muck and leaves in the bottom so maybe that had something to do with it? I turned sensativity down to 1 and played with clear/max modes still had issues.
Not fun when you are fishing an tourney and the darn thing isn't even working. It was messing up but reading about 4 ft and I figured I was good, yeah right, tell that to the stump I hit on the dig up to plane... Just a little disappointed and had to vent somewhere.

We did catch crappies though. The temp dropped 30 in two days, water temps on the finder dropped 10 degrees, wind blew at 20-25 and rain pelted us. Tried some brush in bays and got nothing so we kept drifting in 12-14 fow at a bay opening that had lots of scatter bait and good amounts of crappie. I'm new to crappie fishing and should have used bigger hooks on the minnows for more hookups, but we did come in 9th overall. :rolleyes:

[Humminbird_Greg]

Wasilvers,
What version software are you running on your 798 unit? We have updated the software on most models of the 798 units since last year.

If you are running the most current software than adjusting the Surface Clutter menu and/or changing the Water Type menu to the Deep Saltwater setting.

Remember that a sonar unit will not show a stump until you are already over it.

[wasilvers]

Well don't I look like an idiot. I updated the software, and now it says 5.2something, not 5.4! Guess I didn't upgrade it after all. My bad griping about HB when it is user error!

Will

[wasilvers]

Yeah, I know hitting the stump was my fault too. Just another thing to add to the frustrating weather, fishing, and gear issues.

[Humminbird_Greg]

I understand Will and have left a prop imprint on more than one stump around here…