Lowrance New Transducer and now my depth is off

[Sea Lion]

Hi Gang,

     I thought this might be interesting.  I have a Lowrance LMS 480 fishfinder.  I was reading a fairly warm 125 degrees in late April and thought that might be a problem...Yes I was in front of Ginna but. thinking my Transducer was finally trying to tell me something.  Finally I had ordered a new one and put it on...Now my depth is off.  I drop my cannonballs down 15 and it is reading 17.  I contacted Lowrance and the dreaded feeling they would require both Transducer and fishfinder to be sent back.  I was surprised by the response I got.  Below is what they sent me.

 

You can adjust the keel offset to calibrate the depth. Press menu twice, enter on sonar setup, enter on keel offset, and enter the correct difference. 

Thank you for choosing Navico products!

Navico Technical Support

 

 

Hope that helps other Lowrance owners.

 

Bob

[Don Supon]

I wouldn't worry about the difference. IMO it is irrelevant.

If you were to lose 100 ft. off your DR cable spool, it's diameter size would decrease and make your DR counter reading off anyways.

Just rely on what your FF screen shows you. Place the cannonball in the same water column area it is showing you fish are in. That's all you need to catch a fish.

Recently fishing bottom in 95FOW for lakers, I had to lower the ball to 95 on one rigger while a second rigger only read 85. Both balls were tracking just off bottom, exactly where I wanted them to be. The FF had to be closely monitored in this fishing situation to avoid bottom hangups. The DR counters are only a tool, they are inaccurate, and they can only be used to "ball park" a depth. In combination with a FF depth reading (it's accuracy is also uncertain IMO), visual representation of fish and of lure placement are the factors to pay attention to. Counters are useful for duplicating a previous presentation, but should not be solely relied upon for initial presentations.