False FF Readings

I have an Eagle 245DS. I have been seeing tons of fish on my FF but not catching anywhere near what I should.
When I was at Montezuma with Adam I was marking all kinds of fish with no bites. I figured it was mostly debris in the water.
At Sly Park same thing.
A couple of weeks ago at Tahoe I was marking a ton of fish 15' below me. I was using my Okuma reel with a built in line counter. I dropped to 15'. Still marking tons of fish I looked over the side. I could see my live minnow right in the middle of what should have been all kinds of fish. The only problem was that my minnow was the only thing in the area.
I had the sensitivity turned way down yet I would mark schools and schools of fish.
The water was crystal clear so I should have seen something. Zip, nada, zilch.
What do you think the reason for all these false readings are?? How can I correct it?
Anyone else experiencing this with their FF?

Jelly has the same ff and it has been surprisingly accurate.  Make sure you have the right beam and sensitivity selected.  If you continue to get wonky readings maybe your trans has bubbles or something.  I just put a 245 on my Marauder, I'll let you know how it works.

Never had problems with fishfinders personally!    

I want a fishfinder one of these days, but I'm resisting!    

My Dad has a theory that there's a guy in Iowa some where that writes a script-loop for the chip in fishfinders that shows fish all the time!  "Elroy, you wrote in a school of fish too high in the water column again!"

I'm sure you're experienced enough to not do this yourself but when I first installed mine (never used one before) I somehow put it in demo mode and thought there were fish everywhere around me too. 

I have the Eagle 250. The only time I got false readings was during the heavy red tide.

Hey Tote with the temperatures your FF has been exposed to it probably caught a cold too!

If the settings are cool then I would check the goop on the transducer like Scwafish suggested, the rough weather might have made it funky.

Often a FF will pick up a thermocline, and 15' down is about where you'd find it. 

Mike...you don't have it in "shows a cute-lil'fishey" mode do you?  i got the same and I SEE(arches) not FISH I.D. mode.
I've gone for miles and not seen a damned fish, then I've seen ONE, STOPPED over it and GOT IT(several times) so THEY DO WORK!
you just need to offer the flavor they want on that particular day!  sounds easy don't it!

Hey Tote with the temperatures your FF has been exposed to it probably caught a cold too!

If the settings are cool then I would check the goop on the transducer like Scwafish suggested, the rough weather might have made it funky.

No Goop in there. I do the donut/water thingy. Yes it was frozen solid when I started, but thawed later on. I will play around with it next time. Gonna make darned sure I am 100% before my next outting.

Here is a test I like to do with fish finders when setting them up. Take a 2 oz topedo sinker and drop her down with in scope of the cone. Grey line should be high and sensitivity should be low. Adjust the grey line until the image clears. Now jig the sinker while up and down while turning sensitivity up. ( scroll speed should be on max. Once you get the sinker to make a nice solid line you are in good shape. Depending on the depth you fish you should adjust to best read marks at that depth range. Any adjustment for solid marks at 80+ will usually mean crappy reading in the top 10 -15 feet.


-Brian G

Hey Tote with the temperatures your FF has been exposed to it probably caught a cold too!

If the settings are cool then I would check the goop on the transducer like Scwafish suggested, the rough weather might have made it funky.

No Goop in there. I do the donut/water thingy. Yes it was frozen solid when I started, but thawed later on. I will play around with it next time. Gonna make darned sure I am 100% before my next outting.

If it was frozen, the ice pushed the transducer up. When it melted, you probably had some air space when the water level dropped.

maybe they were gefilte fish

have the same problem too...
the signature comes & goes, but seems like moving up & down as the depth moves...

Often a FF will pick up a thermocline, and 15' down is about where you'd find it. 

is this ture...?

I did the form and water thing at first also but did not like the readings I was getting so I went to the direct to the hall with the Goop method seemed to work a lot better for me, just my 2 cense.

Pat R

I think blue's right - they were probably soggy...