Arch vs. Fish I.D.

[Flick]

I bought my current boat used (a 1995 model) and it came with a Eagle/Navistar fish finder/loran. I don't use the Loran because I have a GPS.
Unfortunately I don't have a manual for the fish finder. Never heard anyone refer to Eagle at this board. Are they junk? Also, I've been told the fish i.d. mode is a joke. But if I turn off the fish i.d. mode I get very few arches in an area where I was marking lots of fish under the I.D. mode. Should I not use the fish i.d.?

[Mr.Pike]

Two part answer; 1- No its not junk 2- Yes, turn off the lame little fishies. Anything underwater that is between the transducer and the bottom will register ( as little fishie ). Try drifting through sparce cabbage with the ID on, You'll more than likely see " Stacks " of little fish instead of vertical lines. Same with small pieces of weeds and/or debris in the water column. They will show up as small or medium size. Heck even the thermocline will set the fishies into action if sensitivity is high enough. The Mode that shows a few arches is alot more REAL than the video game fish Id mode.
Turn it off and forget about it. My 2 cents
<;{{{{<<( Mr.Pike

[LITTLEHOOKER]

I HAVE AN EAGLE OPTIMA, AND I LOVE IT. I WOULD AGREE TO TURN OFF THE LITTLE VIDEO GAME FISHIES. WHAT I LIKE IS THAT YOU ARE ABLE TO READ THE BOTTOM CONTOURS AND TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HARD AND SOFT BOTTOM. ONCE YOU GET COMFORTABLE WITH WHAT THE LOCATOR IS TELLING YOU, THEN GO AND TRY TO MARK SOME FISH. GET USED TO YOUR EQUIPMENT BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY GO OUT FISHING.I LIKE THE EAGLE LINE. IF YOUR IN DIRE NEED OF THE BOOK THAT GOES ALONG WITH IT, I'M SURE YOU CAN GET ONE FROM THE MANUFACTURER ON LINE. I BELIEVE THAT THE EAGLE LINE IS MADE BY LAWRENCE, I COULD BE WRONG BUT ALL THEIR TRANSDUCERS AND EXTRAS ARE COMPATABLE AND INTERCHANGABLE DEPENDING ON THE MODEL. HOPE THIS HELPS. BY THE WAY, DON'T WORRY WHAT OTHERS LIKE AND DON'T LIKE IN A LOCATOR, IT'S WHAT HELPS YOU UNDERSTAND WHATS UNDER THE BOAT THAT IS IMPORTANT, NOT WHAT SOMEONE ELSE WANTS TO SEE MOUNTED ON YOUR DASH...

MY 2 CENTS.

[SeaCat]

Yes turn off the fishes. Then you will need to tune your unit to really see what is under the boat. I'm not familiar with the Eagle unit you have, but most will have gain/sensitivity, noise reduction, whiteline and other controls that must be adjusted in relation to one and other to make the system work.

A good place to start is to turn up the gain control until you see a double reading on the bottom -- ie: if it is 15' deep, you should see a solid mark at both 15' and 30'. Then back it off a little so the deeper reading goes away. This should give you enough power to see the bottom and any fish that come in between. If you go deeper, you will probably need to increase the gain/sensitivity setting. Nice thing is that until you get too deep for your unit to read (probably over 100'), you can always reset the gain by redoing the double reading procedure.

Eagle is made by Lowrance. The Lowrance web site has a decent tutorial on using sonar units. The URL is: http://www.lowrance.com/marine/tutorial/Default.htm

Ryan

[Scott_in_kc]

I have an Eagle Magna III on the bow and an x65 on the console. It takes a few trips to really figure out what you're seeing and to trust the unit. Once you get used to having the FISH ID OFF you will wonder why they ever put this useless feature on there in the first place. Try dangling a jig under the transducer at different depths and you will get a feel of what it will show and how it displays, most units will not show the real bottom hugging fish. If you are right on top of the fish and they arent moving much you may only see a horizontal line and not an arch, but try the jig thing you'll see what I mean. And follow the tuning advice given in the above posts, very important!!

[Bret N]

The only other thing I would add to the above posts is that when you turn the Fish ID off you will probably want to turn down the sensitivity. I have an eagle magna III and when you turn off the fish ID the sensitivity is set at 50%. that is way too high and will show too much clutter on the screen. This is probably the reason you were seeing many "fish" marked when in Fish ID mode. I usually turn the sensitivity down to 30-40 percent depending on how deep I'm fishing and how clear the water is. Also, you probably won't get a true "arch" that is shown on all the demonstrator modes. The only way you could get a true arch is if the fish passed through the exact middle of the transducer cone. More often you will get a half arch. If the fish are really hugging the bottom and you are not moving much, you will sometimes see the line representing the bottom fluctuate. This fluctuation is often times a fish. Hope this helps. Bret

[minneman]

i have a book somewhere for a LMS150 which may be the lowrance version of your unit, loran etc. if i can find it and you want it let me know, i have the 350 now, and wont need it. minneman