Vex in deep water

[willowcat]

I'm wondering if this is normal. I have a FL8slt, when fishing in 18'or more of water the jig or bait tends to move off to the side. My Vex will no longer pick up the bait. And when I turn up the gain I get so much disturbance I can't tell if there is fish,bait or anything. does anyone know if this is normal?

[Finlander]

You probobly have a bad transducer!
Go to the Vexilar HSOforum to see how to test it.
Mine had simalar problems and a new tranducer made it run like new!

[Skeets]

If your lure goes outside the cone angle of the transducer, your Vexilar will not pick it up.

Try dropping the lure slower, so it stays straighter in the cone.

I usually never have my gain higher than "2".

[Bryon]

I have a similar problem with my FL-8 SLT, but I know the bait is directly under the transducer, I've tried with pretty heavy ball jigs, I swapped transducers with my brother and it does the same thing, and his works fine. Does this mean I have to send it in and have them look at it?

[cisco kid]

Is there any current to speak of? Doesnt take much to pull a small jig and waxie out of the cone.

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[RiverRunner]

WillowCat

It sounds to me like your transducer is bad. My Dad had the same thing happen when fishing in 15' or less his FL8 worked fine. Any deeper than 15' he had to actually turn the gain up to 2 to find the bottom and you couldn't pick up the jig, because their was so much clutter. What we did was took the transducer to the Vexilar service center and they gave us a new one. The Vexilar was only about 2 months old. What I would do is find a friend with a known working FL8 Transducer, switch with them. I would bet that the transducer does the exact same thing on his FL8.

[willowcat]

There isn't any current in the areas I've fished. It's just that when the jig gets down past 15' it gets lost in the clutter. Sometimes if you move it real fast you can see it. I turn up the gain beyond 2 and I get all kinds of clutter. The batteries I have are old but seem to take a charge fine so I can't see it being a battery. When I'm fishing on the shallow setting in under 15' it seems to work O.K. but I still get clutter just not as much and the jig doesn't disappear.

[Bryon]

BUMP

[HARDWATER]

how small is your jig??
some times i have to get the gain up to 5-6
and it works just fine...also try it on the yellow side..

[HARDWATER]

also is it i mean the vex. cold when you start it?

[Guest]

when I fish in water over 20' with a small jig size 12 or 14 I have to set the vex on 5 or 6 to see the jig near the bottom.