Fish Finder On A Kayak, Which One Would You Do?

[Haris122]

I did get basically the cheapest model I can find, a humminbird piranha max 143. Now I got to figure out how to set it up on the kayak. They say it can be mounted inside the hull but the water temperature reading then doesn't work.

[Haris122]

So it took me close to a year to finally set up that fish finder up on the kayak, even though in hindsight I could've done it with less time and difficulty than I anticipated it taking from looking at some of the videos. I just recently took it for a short trial run. It's definitely cool and helpful to have. My main difficulty is adjusting to the way the unit displays things. It seems that when I pass over some fish and try to stay in place to fish for them, the display of the unit seems to continue moving (I assume basically just rescanning the same area but as if the kayak were continuing to move, if I were able to come to a dead stop), as opposed to staying in place when I'm in place. Is that usually how they work, or do you normally have the image stay in place as you hover over an area and have it go in reverse if you back up over an area?

[Haris122]

I asked this in another thread but I figure I get more exposure, to get an answer. My Humminbird 143 fish finder worked fine for me the first 4 trips out if the water was deeper than 3 feet (as mentioned in the manual). I haven't recharged the little 12 volt battery yet. This last trip on the other hand, it started plotting the bottom structure and depth like normal, and then a minute or two in, even though the screen remained on, the depth and structure basically stopped being read as if it was in water that's too shallow. I checked with the paddle, and the water was clearly deep enough that it shouldn't have had any problems plotting it. The Fish finder has a battery alarm option where it will beep if the battery voltage is equal to or less than what I choose it to alarm me at (Anywhere from 8.5-13.5 volts), and if set to 13-12 the alarm would start beeping. So my question is can anyone explain why the finder wasn't plotting depth anymore even though the screen still worked? And does that have anything to do with battery power? Does the transducer signal not work past a certain battery strength while the display still works, or what is going on.

[Haris122]

Well, this crap is very aggravating. I charged the battery up, just in case that had anything to do with it, went out again today, and that POS still doesn't work. So much for all the good ratings on this darn thing. Couldn't get it to function for a full darn month.

[fishinwrench]

Is there a chance you have the range setting wrong for the depth of water you are in, or are you operating on Auto ?

What is the default sensitivity setting when you first turn the unit on ? Maybe it needs more.

Transducer angle OK ? Are you sure?

[Haris122]

I forget what the sensitivity was on default, I think at 5 out of 10, but I adjusted that to the max and back and it didn't seem to matter. The range setting for the depth has been on auto. I don't recall ever adjusting it. As far as the transducer angle, up until this week's trip, it worked fine for the prior 4 trips so I'm guessing the angle was good seeing how it's "glued" to the inside of the kayak hull. Even when this thing acted up Friday, the finder started off displaying depth fine, and then kind of stopped showing the bottom and reading depth a few minutes in. I found it odd but figured maybe I went into water that's too shallow for a bit, up unitl it just continued not displaying depth and I checked the depth with the paddle and found out it was easily deep enough for the finder to display the bottom. Then yesterday evening I went again after charging up the battery and it still didn't show anything.

[grizwilson]

I forget what the sensitivity was on default, I think at 5 out of 10, but I adjusted that to the max and back and it didn't seem to matter. The range setting for the depth has been on auto. I don't recall ever adjusting it. As far as the transducer angle, up until this week's trip, it worked fine for the prior 4 trips so I'm guessing the angle was good seeing how it's "glued" to the inside of the kayak hull. Even when this thing acted up Friday, the finder started off displaying depth fine, and then kind of stopped showing the bottom and reading depth a few minutes in. I found it odd but figured maybe I went into water that's too shallow for a bit, up unitl it just continued not displaying depth and I checked the depth with the paddle and found out it was easily deep enough for the finder to display the bottom. Then yesterday evening I went again after charging up the battery and it still didn't show anything.

You might be getting air between the transducer and hull when you start it is tight, then moving it gets a bubble, put a little water in the hull, just enough to make sure bottom of transducer is covered when you are going see if that corrects the issue, if so you will need to re glue the transducer, happened on my bass boat???? Just a thought.

g

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

Maybe a soft floor? From some of my reading, if you have a muddy floor (river bottom), it will malfunction. I believe you are fishing Meramec in the stl area, that maybe part of it.

[Haris122]

Griz, I will give that a shot. I did take a couple handfuls and poured it around the transducer but it didn't seem to change anything. I will put some more in. It didn't seem to me like the adhesive (Marine goop or whatever it was called) was weakening, but I'd hope that's all there is to it.

Daryk, in this case it was Simpson Park where this happened. I thought about that being the potential cause at first, but it seemingly working for a little bit and then suddenly not graphing the bottom any more, has me skeptical on that being it. The second time I took it over there after charging the battery up, it didn't even read the same area as it started out reading last time. But I haven't took it any other place yet to be sure. Once it stopped it stopped all over Simpson Park Lake that I paddled to. I feel like I took it to lakes and portions of the Meramec (George Winter) that would have a similar enough bottom composition that it shouldn't have worked there as well if it didn't at Simpson Park.

[Haris122]

Just to update people, it looks like the problem has been solved. I scraped the transducer and marine goop or whatever it's called from the kayak, and scraped off all the adhesive from the bottom of the transducer, and then just tried the transducer as is, and it worked out fine. I could just lay it inside the kayak and it would chart things fine. I figured with all the stuff that's mentioned both in the manual and the videos online it wouldn't work like that due to air interference around the edges, but apparently it's perfectly fine. I don't know the exact cause of it stopping to work the way it was set up, but it almost seems like the adhesive somehow cured over time so it interfered with the transducer bottom pressed into it. I think I might just leave it as is, or simply glue the transducer to the hull only by the edges.