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greenberg21

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Jan 3, 2019
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Location
Red Lion, Pa
After a 2 year absence of owning a boat, I'm itching to get back into the family of boat ownership. I'm liking the Elite 7Ti unit, but my last 2 Lowrance units had problems while up on plane. Lowrance is suggesting a thru-hull transducer, but that is not an option with an Aluminum boat. I fish a lot of shallow bays and can go from 8' to 2' as we come across shoals and bars. I need depth information the most when I'm up on plane.

Anyone else have this problem and overcome with transducer placement and/or transom modifications? I hate to keep drilling holes every time the transducer needs moved because the unit is not reading bottom when on plane.

Suggestions and learnings from those who have been there and done that???
 
I through-bolted a piece of starboard with a bunch of 5200 to seal it on my transom, then screwed my transducer to it so the adjustments wouldn't require a new transom hole each time.
 
I haven't had any problems with mine but maybe I got lucky? It works on plane for me. I also think that you can use it with a thru hull transducer, it just depends how it's mounted.
 
OK, first let me toss out a few disclaimers. First (and most important), I am not intending to be critical. Instead my curiosity is getting the better of me. Second, keep in mind about the shallowest water I'm ever in is around the boat ramp at 3 mph. And third, the guy who said "there is no such thing as a dumb question" didn't hang around me for very long.

Here goes:

If you are going fast enough to be up on plane in 2' of water and you run across a sandbar or something, you will know it before you can react to a depth reading. So, while it is good to have a reading while up on plane, I don't see how it is going to really help when going fast in skinny water.
 
I think, mind you I think that the transducer is supposedly useful for getting the readings while on plane in deeper water. In shallows like you're stating it wouldn't be much good. When you can see the bottom you're probably going to get a good depth reading using your eyeballs. :mrgreen:
 
It took me about 20 times of re-mounting my Lowrance transducer to get a somewhat acceptable reading on plane. It's still marginal. My Humminbird on the other boat? Reads on plane fine, first try. Can't explain it.

I use the chart and my eyes a lot more to navigate when I'm on plane.
 
greenberg21 said:
I hate to keep drilling holes every time the transducer needs moved because the unit is not reading bottom when on plane.

Suggestions and learnings from those who have been there and done that???

Best advice I can give is to get a transducer mounting plate and stop drilling new holes in your boat. This picture shows when I first installed it. It's got 40 more holes in it now :shock:

20180620_180555-M.jpg
 

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