Lowrance troubles

Gonna try doing this as short winded as I can. I've had 2 gen2 touch units for a few years. When I first got them everything was great and I was catching the fool out of fish. Last winter I put a software update on it and things haven't been right since. The 2 units will tell 2 different stories and I don't know which one to trust. I can't catch fish like I was and it's got my confidence level low.
I finally spent the better part of yesterday fooling with the settings. If I keep the surface clarity medium or high I mark fish in 6 to 12 ft of water but there is none there to catch. Is high the recommended setting for this.
Also what is recommended for noise rejection. At the same time I keep the sensitivity on auto and adjust a little. Yesterday I was in the middle of a huge flock of diving gulls and could never mark any bait clouds like I could before. My question on that is, are they any quick settings tips for lowrance like I have seen for hummingbird.
Thank you all.

It seems I remember seeing a "return to factory defaults" option buried in one of the menus somewhere.

You can try a hard reset to reset everything from scratch. Be sure to backup your waypoints and any routes or trails you wish to save to an SD card because it will all be deleted.
If you decide you want to go back to your previous software version you can download it here.
ftp://software.lowrance.com/

Here are reset procedures for Lowrance units ...

Article Details

Soft reset does not delete Nav data ...

Hard reset wipes everything back to factory ...

Rickie

I just updated my 7 gen 2 yesterday, hadn't had it out yet, hope I didn't mess up!!!!! It was the newest update, 6.0 , came out in aug 16.

The update I have is the one previous to 6.0. I will try the reset next time out. I was hoping for a little knowledge on the surface clarity and what it does. Thanks to all that helped.

The only problem I have with 6.0 is the at5 files. I have found a "WORK AROUND" if you use at5 files.

I missed what you were actually asking. In addressing the surface clarity options that option is designed to prevent a problem with particulants in the water returning a false echo indicating a fish. It is possible to make any fish finder give false readings by turning the gain or sensitivity too high. Trying to be as specific as possible without getting lost in the technology, when you increase the sensitivity on a fish finder it does not change what the fish finder sees but only what you see on the display. Assuming that you updated the software on both devices at the same time then the software problem could be on either or both units. At this point I should mention that I usually don't do software updates on most electronics devices I own because I have far to often had problems following updates. Generally my only exception is with Windows virus definitions. Back to your problem you have a couple of options you could try. The easiest would be to park your boat over a known brush pile and adjust your fish finder to show what you already know to be there. The other option would be to search on line and find a guy that calls himself "Doc Sonar". He will respond to and answer any question you could come up with about a Lowrance unit. He sells instructional videos that even though I have used depth finders for over 30 years I learned new tricks after watching. Hopefully some of this is helpful to your issues. If not feel free to ask as specific a question as necessary and I will try to answer it. Understanding how a sonar unit works makes it easier to correct problems but when all else fails just save your gps locations to a ad card and factory reset both devices if you think both are giving false displays of the sonar signal. I will admit I don't know where every adjustment is on your unit but I do know how it works.

Thanks crappie wrangler. More along the lines of what I was looking for. On what sensitivity setting do u start on ur units.

Because I know the waters I fish in very well I just leave mine on auto sensitivity. I have played with the sensitivity enough that I don't leave it on auto because I don't know how to use it but because that works well for me. I do change the water clarity mode though to match the lakes conditions. A few years ago when life was going to end because zebra muscles had invaded my home lake I found that a side effect of zebra muscles was that the make the water really clear so I had my units set for clear water. Later the lake flooded several times and the water stayed stained for a long time so I set my units to stained water. I leave mine on auto because I have found that increasing the sensitivity will make my display show bait or debris give an inaccurate impression of what is under me. This is what works for me. Once I learned that the sensitivity adjustment only changes what I see but not what the sonar sees I began to trust the auto setting more and worked at interpreting what I see without making adjustments. Admittedly what works for me may not work for others. There are large numbers of striped bass in Texoma and they predate the crappie and that makes the crappie hard to locate. For me seeing fish or bait is not a problem but determining what kind of fish is. I use the zoom mode often when I am seeing sonar returns a a particular depth to better identify what I am seeing. I also use the split screen showing the returns for two different frequencies. I find the duel frequency display to be very helpful. Because of your question I am going to play with the sensitivity more today to see how quickly I can replicate your issues but being as you did not have a problem until you did a software update I am inclined to believe that is where your problem lies. I will easily admit that trouble shooting is easier for me when I am actually looking at the problem. I will be on the water later today, you can call me if you like and I can go thru settings with you but you may know more than I do.

You might try doctorsonar.com. He has a lot more expertise than I do.

An example of what I meant about interpreting my sonar, while I was unsuccessfully fishing Monday I noticed a series of small dots on the display at 50' in 63' of water. With my sonar set to auto my first thought was that crappie being generally around 14" my sonar should return a small echo at 50' seeing fish that size that far from the transducer. The question is would I know not having an under water camera on my boat? I would not know, my instink was to drop a spoon and see if I caught anything. I will readily admit that it is difficult to jig up crappie that deep with out live bait but I don't like using live bait. I actually began catching crappie at 50'. I did not catch a lot but enough for it to be a learning experience. I think I even posted a pic of the first fish because I got excited. I never considered going to manual mode and turning up the sensitivity although that would have been an option I am just not used to doing it. I suppose I could have told my sonar to zoom to the last 20' of the water table and increase the sensitivity to get a better look but I was happy with what it was showing me even though I was still on auto. In the summer I will increase the sensitivity just to see the depth of the thermocline and then back to auto but most of the time I can see it on auto. It would be easy to think that those results are just with that specific unit but I have two HDS-5's on that boat one at the helm and one at the trolling motor and one HDS-5 on the trolling motor of the pontoon boat and a hummingbird 889 at the helm and get the same results from all 4 units. It is not that I am any better at reading my sonar but more of that is what I am used to doing because when I first started using sonar on my boats they did not have the logic chips available today so only option was figuring out wat the sonar was telling me. I guess now I am just to lazy to learn all the capabilities of the new stuff.

Crappie wrangle, u my friend, are a prime example of what makes this site so great.

Thanks for the compliment. Truthfully I just plain like to fish. I like it so much that I make most of my own gear. I pour my own lead head hooks, make my own spoons, I also get unpainted crank baits from China and paint and assemble them myself. I also build my own custom fishing rods. I suppose the rod building is kind of its own hobby that pays for itself as I have sold several hundred rods over the years. (I don't compete with Walmart) I messed up and let my fishing buddy see a 9' ultralight 1 piece bait casting rod that I recently made for myself and now I have to make him one too :). When I disassembled my aluminum crappie boat to re-carpet it he came over and helped me with getting the bigger pieces aligned for the rivets while I was putting it back together so I guess he earned one :) I mostly fish lake Texoma and while there are a few other crappie fisherman here most never post so I guess I pretty much dominate the Texoma page. Texoma crappie fisherman a very secretive so this web site makes me feel like I belong.

Well the 6.0 update has messed my depth finder up, locks up on the first page. Now I got to try to go back to what I had. I hope this works.

You might check with Lowrance and see if they will warranty their update.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Countryboy N.C.

Well the 6.0 update has messed my depth finder up, locks up on the first page. Now I got to try to go back to what I had. I hope this works.

---

Here are Lowrance software versions ...

ftp://software.lowrance.com

It is recommended to not load an older version than the unit came with ...

Rickie

Thanks for the info, I think I have it fixed now, reloaded the newest update, still would not leave the first screen, tried the hard reset, still the same, After the reset it would work till you turned it off but when you turned it on again it would not leave first screen again. Finally done a screen calibrate, and now it is working, turned it on 5 or 6 times now and has worked every time.

NBNC I think we have the same type of DF. What update did you use? Thanks

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eatmorecrappie

NBNC I think we have the same type of DF. What update did you use? Thanks

---

It was the 6.0, came out in aug 16, for the hds gen 2, I got it working now, I dont think it was the down load after all, I put the 5.0 back in it and it done the same thing, so I reinstalled the 6.0 again,still doing the same thing, it was the screen calibration all along. If I had known this yesterday on the water, I could have got it working on the water. I called lowrance on the water, told them what was going on, he had me to do a soft reset, didn't help, said my down load was corrupt , and I had to do it again, thats why I tried it 3 times when I got home, then I done the hard reset, still the same, he never said anything about calibrating my screen, I guess I'm still learning ...........