Yet another vexilar problem...

[Lowe]

I have an older FL-8 that seems to be losing its sensitivity. Naturally, my first thought was a bad transducer. I have both the ice-ducer and the high speed transducer, and I did the test described on this forum and the Vex site (holding the ducers 2' above a hard surface and looking for a line at 9'). Both ducers showed lines at a gain setting of about 4. Power and transducer connections look clean. On a recent lake trout trip into Canada, however, I was only able to pick up my jig to about 30', and that was with the gain cranked to 10, which gave me tons of clutter. There were some other Vex's (8's and 18's) around, but I'm pretty sure it's not an interference problem, as I've noticed the same thing last year when fishing deeper water with no other flashers around.

Could it still be a bad ducer, or is it the unit itself? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Guest]

I'm assuming your battery is good? Can you try a buddy's transducer to rule that out?

[Lowe]

Battery is good. Good idea on switching ducers with a friend, I assume the older units are compatible with newer transducers?

[marine_man]

As long as it's a FL series flasher you should be able to try it out...

marine_man

[Guest]

Good luck! If the ducer checks out okay, I'd probably give Vexilar a call and see if you can talk to a technician.

[Hubcat]

It is probably not this simple, But I have had it where I could not read my jig no matter how high I turned the gain up (more than once). What I did was pull my ducer out and rub the face of with my hand and it worked fine. I think maybe fine bubbles or some thing is interfering with it.

[Rick]

If the ideas here don't pan out contact Vexilar. They are very experienced at dealing with these problems. There CS is usualy very good..top notch.

Let us know how it goes.

[Lowe]

Hubcat, I've run into that problem before too. Unfortunately, that's not it. I've also tried every conceivable transducer angle and depth.

[pj4]

just last week had same problem. only it worked till i dropped into diff hole. found out i had a thin layer of ice on bottom of ducer. wiped it off and it worked good. now i wipe it every time i lift it from the water.