RiverBottomOutdoors said:Usually rip my transducer off once a year. Got it done early this year back in January so hopefully can check it off the list.
I wish someone would make a mounting device you could control while underway from the helm. Something with an electric motor and switch or something mechanical with a lever and cable that you could raise and lower the transducer. I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
I have been keeping up with this topic cause I wanting to add one to my flat bottom jet but just don't want to drill holes in my new boat. I like the route u have chose. I agree that I don't need it to work on plane, I want it to be able to find structure, I'm wanting to get into crappie fishing and think this would help. Do you have any pictures of your transducer and mount? Thank you.momule said:My transducer is transom mounted with a flipup Lowrance mount screwed to a transducer mounting bracket that is welded to the transom. When on plane the unit works only at 300khz and the screen is full of "noise" but the numeric readout works pretty well. When not on plane the unit works great. Like a previous poster said, when on plane I'm not really using the unit because by the time it shows me that the water is shallow it's too late anyway. At idling or trolling speeds I'm looking for fish structure and it works fine. Depth finders are a great tool but if you're using one to prevent hitting a shallow obstacle at speed you're going to hit it.
Thanks very much for the info.fishing66 said:Transducers on river jet boats are a tricky problem. An exposed transducer gives the best readings but its life expectancy is short. An internally-mounted transducer doesn't give the best readings but it will be protected. What I did was buy a Humminbird TS3 Transducer Switch which allows you to hook two transducers to one sonar unit and simply flip a switch. One transducer is mounted externally on this, the Transducer Lift from Genoah:
The other transducer is mounted inside the hull. If you look carefully in the rear battery compartment of your boat, you should be able to find a flat surface near the rear of the boat to mount a transducer to. Sand the area down to bare aluminum, clean with acetone and attach the transducer using Alumaducer Acoustically Conductive Epoxy; it costs about $10.00 per pack and doesn't go far, so two packs may be in order. The guide told me that the Alumaducer does work but it has more to do with the epoxy they use rather than the transducer itself. Keep in mind, when you are running in ten inches of a water, a sonar unit is pretty much useless. It also causes problems when you get into, say, five feet of water over a rocky bottom because the signal return is so strong that you have to turn the sensitivity way down. There are a lot of mixed opinions on mounting transducers to trolling motors as while they work well in weedy lakes, they will get smaked by river rocks. Minn Kota makes some motors that have built-in universal transducers but dang, they ain't cheap.
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