Former Texas parks and wildlife video production intern. I have been fishing for 20 years and I grew up bass fishing in the central Texas area. I have a 14 ft Lund WV with a Mercury 15 hp outboard motor and a Garmin Echomap 73SV fish Finder. I don’t use fancy expensive gear and my goal is to share useful practical knowledge on how to catch bass, catfish, crappie, and even some saltwater fish. I have a full schedule for 2023 so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out!
I think this is a very valid and truthful review. That Garmin is a good fish finder, so the comparison was excellent! It looks like a great find for $40
I think you hit on a very important point on transducer leveling. I want to add to the idea of pointing the transducer down a little bit. The sides of the signal cone being emitted are the 1/2 power points. It takes time for the echo to be received back to the transducer. Because of the time delay, when the transducer is level, the boat moves and the echo received back from each ping is near the 1/2 power point. This echo is also smudged by random reflections occurring at the 1/2 power point vicinity of the cone. Tilting the transducer down a little will allow the ping to be sent forward slightly allowing the boat to be in the full power reflection point of the echo on each ping. If this idea is correct, then there would be an optimum speed for the boat for a given depth and angle setting of the transducer. The optimum speed would be the speed that gives the best clarity. This is something to experiment with.
Coin leveling has always been inaccurate. All installations are impacted by weight and balance of the boat. Full fuel or 1/4 tank? One occupant or two? Loaded with the same waight in the same locations each time? We shoot for the best "average'. A slight down angle on the rear of the transducer provides a smoother water flow over the face of the transducer's sonar windows. Great graphics..
I adjusted my transducer until my fish arches appeared level on my graph's display. I also mounted my transducer as far away from the boat center line as possible which reduces ping blockage from the motor. My transducer is pointing at an angle of 3 degress higher at the back of the transducer than the front. My side imaging works great both to the right and left. If you install your transsucer where any part of it extends below the hull bottom you are only asking for trouble. Transducers can be damaged if they strike floating objects in the water at faster speeds. Not worth the risks to me.
Pretty straight forward and it helps to see how you did it. It is my turn and I stumbled upon 3/16 local or I would help you out. Mind if I ask how the Powerdrive is treating you?
The powerdrive works great I haven’t had any issues and having the spot lock gps is a game changer ! Definitely buy local if you can it will be cheaper. I couldn’t find anywhere locally that sold the kind of aluminum I needed.
I always say “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. Also my simulation only shows that in perfect conditions without the effect of the wake or other sources of noise a slight forward tilt is optimal. For some people depending on the boat they have and the design of the hull and the wake a forward tilt may not work best.
If you are a fisherman, you are going to be fishing, not recording. That feature is a gimmick. For what the Garmins do they are 100% worth the money. I have 106sv up front and a 126sv at the console with the get56 transducer and livescope. They are reliable. I’ve had hummingbirds and they spent more time getting fixed and wound up broke anyway. I will never buy that brand again! Garmin just work…everytime. No glitches or failures. The resolution is top notch. I use the 12 at the console as I can very easily pick out fish with it. The 10” up front is for livescope and it is amazing. I do recommend that if you buy a Garmin, STAY AWAY FROM AMAZON!!!! I had 2 refurbished/used units sent to me. One was the wrong series all together! The sellers on there will try to rip you off, so be fore warned!!!
That is currently not possible to do with any fish finder (other than the ones with Forward facing sonar which are thousands of dollars). You also cannot accurately determine the depth of the fish as the depth shown on the screen is the distance the object is from the transducer and because you are using such a wide sonar cone, the depth shown will almost always be deeper than the fish is actuality. There is a lot of misunderstanding about fish finders, the value that this one has is that it provides you the ability to see the depth of the water and can somewhat accurately determine bottom composition and the presence of fish. That information alone is very useful even though you don't get the whole picture its better than nothing.
Hey, great job. Question: what did you do with the bow navigation light? I am doing a similar install and am trying to find a raised light so it mounts aft of the motor mount, but still remains visible from ahead of the boat.
I like how thorough the review was. I was looking for an inexpensive fish finder to put onto my Intex Excursion 5. Used the link to buy. Hopefully it’ll assist with my small pond/quick fishing trips
Great review, I want one now! Can't afford a lot of fishin' gear these days the way prices have skyrocketed, but at least this seems to be worthwhile. I don't need anything more than what this "Lucky" finder offers!
I disagree with this video and any transducer video talking about proper transducer placement. Optimal placement is going to be different for everyone unless you have the same boat to weight ratio and placement. You don’t take into account the weight of the boat - full tank of gas / three quarter / half, tackle, how many people on the boat, etc. This will affect the ducer placement regardless of any leveling to the ducer. Trimming also affects the angle of the ducer. Too high and your bow raises which will angle your ducer down…. Too low and you start to level the boat, but you may start to see interference w/ the lower unit which will DEFINITELY impact images…. There’s too many variables. In the end, you’re never going to have the ‘BEST’ angle anyway so there’s really no point to these videos lol.
Not sure on this yet . I set mine up and tilted the back of the transducer up quite a bit to compensate for the motor. I had an image on side view and traditional that would rival any advertisement or high end install. Without really knowing much about the unit and limited time I had to do the rest from my garage. After dropping the transducer slightly but then adjusting to the coin leveling on the water method. The transducer angle came down from the back tipped up to closer looking level. My screens have not looked as clear to date and I am still tweaking .
Yeah in my experience transducer installation is not a "one size fits all". I think the most important thing is to install the transducer away from turbulence and the side of the outboard. In a perfect world, a slight down angle will give you better images but I know every situation is different.
First of all, your 3D graphics to explain your point is brilliant, well done. Transducer Angle to Transom (TAT) is something I am very aware of on my USV's, in fact, the entire design of my USV (AIMy) was based around TAT. While the coin concept worked for many that had just horrible TATs, I agree, it is not a solution for everyone as "slightly down" is certainly the ticket. A very quick and easy 'on the water' test is to idle over some fish on a wide cone angle such as 83kHz for Lowrance/Simrad users to check your arches. If the arch is slightly longer on the left then it is 100% in my opinion as it is slightly down. A perfectly equal arch I would give 80% and a longer right side arch ... 0%, get the boat out of the water now and fix it!
Thanks for watching and thanks for the comment. I agree that transducer angle to transom is imporant. Crazy that garmin doesn’t have any of this info in the installation manual.
You did a great job here! This is exactly the conclusion I came to simply using trial and error. I tried the coin leveling thing and the result for me was terrible.
Same here with my Humminbird 15" Gen3 MEGA. I coin level it and found the fish/structure returns and shadows underwhelming so I pointed the transducer down like you, and found an overall much improved image.
That’s what I thought at first but the lines corresponded with the boat going up and down on the waves. I was running my clearvu on 810 kHz and my side imaging on 1120 so I don’t think it should interfere
What instrument do you use to first determine that your transducer is level (to what) and how and with what do you use to measure the ten degrees down? Picture would help this visual learner. Well done
Any ideas why my side imaging stopped showing the dark area down the miidle that should be the depth of the water I'm in. Meaning my whole screen, no matter what depth of water I'm in looks like it would if you were like in a foot of water. This just started happening.
If it's a Humminbird finder, check to see if you're in "contour mode", which removes the water column and just shows the bottom without the dark area (water column)
I've always have my transducer about 5mm to 10mm down I've never have my transducer level when planning you get the signal almost in center of boat and when just fishing drifting the fish and lumps or objects are almost in center of under the boat I've tested in shallow water were it picks up its pretty much spot on when angled down my pop back in the early nineties told me this always have slight tilt down not level and since this I've always have good luck
