fish finder for shallow water,etc

I do a lot of shallow water fishing,6 feet and up…Looking to up grade from my humminbird 165 piranna….thinking of a flasher…But I want something that is going to work for what I want it to do..Show fish and my jig in the shallow waters as well as down to say,,50 foot if ever I go that far..So give me some ideas please…and how about the angle of the cone as well…I think the one I have is a 20 – 60
sometimes it works and sometimes it don’t….

I have been running an LX-5 for many years now… I fish the back waters of the mississippi river.. like you… 6 feet or less for the most part…

I run it in the super fine line mode and have a great return…

It has a 8 and 20 degree cone angle for a huge array of fishing conditions…

Here is the link to the LX-5 Dual Beam True Color Flasher

Does the transducer angle 8 or 20 make a difference in 5′ of water?

The 20 degree cone will cover more of the water column which is what you want most of the time in shallow water. The 8 degree cone is more of a straight down angle. That works great in really deep water or I use mine a lot fishing in tight cover to take some of the clutter off the display. So generally in shallow water I leave it on 20 degree and I will run the transducer up as high as I can in my hole without it getting interference from the ice at the bottom of the hole.

Like Dave, I also run the lx5 in shallow waters. What makes the unit so nice is the multiple ways to get a good read in shallow stuff. The super fine line works great like mentioned but another trick is to keep the transducer as high as possible in the hole, just enough ducer in the water to get a good shot(1/16 of an inch is enough) then switch to narrow beam making sure the ducer is dead center. This cuts back on the clutter you would pick up from the sides of the hole if you were using a 20 degree shot. By running it this way it picks up the bait much shallower than if you had the ducer at the bottom of the hole. This year with two ft.of ice it makes a huge difference. Not only does it give you some extra read it also eliminates fish getting wrapped up in the cord which is still a huge pet peeve of mine. The lx5 is a heck of a unit but in shallow water the 5s little cousin, the VX-1 has a zoom feature that works great for shallow water. It’s been a great back up

I wasn’t aware you could have the trans. at the top of the hole and no get a lot of interference off the ice…Do you mean have it in the center of the hole? How do you keep it there ?

My Humminbird Ice 35 is the only sonar of 3 I own that will read One foot beneath the transducer. The others won’t read until 32″ to 36″ down.

Duke

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I wasn’t aware you could have the trans. at the top of the hole and no get a lot of interference off the ice…Do you mean have it in the center of the hole? How do you keep it there ?

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Set the unit as close to the hole as possible, set the cable stop and swing the arm out so its dead center. I use an 8in hole for best results but works ok down to 5″. If you are in search mode this isn’t the best way but when you know you are on a school it works really well. Remember, narrow beam then tweak from there

There’s 1 reason i love my marcum, that is for the arm. Nothing i dislike more than losing a fish because of the transducer coord.

So, like everyone else has said, i barely have my transducer wet in shallow water. YOu can literally only have the bottom of the ducer in the water and it works find.

If you know the angle of your transducer you can do the math to know your cone size by depth.

Rarely anymore even in deep water do i have my ducer cord more than a foot below the water level…Just get that much less problems when reeling in a fish, and interference is not a problem until i get into real deep water.