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Yes, it's always on the money

No, it marks fish all the time, but even in clear water there is never a fish in sight

It's hit or miss.

[work2fish]

I use a fish finder when trout fishing, but I find it works poorly at actually finding fish, and use it for charting the lake depth and structure. Any recommendations on one that works for finding fish?

[troutbreath]

Try playing around with the gain settings while dropping a large weight off your rod below the sensor. Try smaller ones after to get use to the sensitivity of the settings. Read your manual too. Which finder are you using?

[Easywater]

You definately have to "tune" your fish finder.

Drop something "fish-sized" over the side on a line and adjust the sensitivity of your fish finder until the object appears on the screen.

Note that you drive over the fish and they will be near your hook 20-30 seconds later.

I have an Eagle Cuda 128 - very cheap unit - about $120 - I set the sensitivity to around 72%..

[fishgod]

I have a Lowrance x107c df.  It was around a 700 dollar unit 6 years ago.  Now discontinued and replaced with new technology
Broadband and downscan.  This new stuff seems to be incredible although you pay for it.  The unit I have has 4000 watts peak to peak.
The new lower end units are still rated in this way.  The more Watts the more you see - again depending on the number of vertical pixels
Your sounder has.  The fewer vertical pixels the more difficult it is to differentiate between objects.  You can improve this by zooming into
A particular zone in the water column. 
The biggest problem with automatic features on sounders is the fish I'D feature
It gets fooled quite easily by just about anything that is not on the bottom - you name it between a thermocline, algae, weeds, branches and trees that have fallen in to the lake.
The tuning part mentioned in previous posts includes turning off this I'D feature and then on a non- color sounder use grey scale, sensitivity is another auto feature actually can usually be left alone.  Just to give you some idea a deep clear lake like alloutte when fishing say 200 ft - sensitivity Will be around 90% - that will decrease in shallower lakes and ones with more color like Sayers or folly.  If sensitivity is left at 90% in these shallower lakes then you will have a lot of noise that will make it more difficult to see fish.

Once you have turned off the I'D feature - fish will appear as arches, partial crescents, or as straight lines if the fish is moving faster than the boat.  Again there will be some trail and error- the easiest thing would be to find some fish to see what they look like and then the next time you will know.  I know maybe easier said than done.  When you get it figured out it's a real feeling of anticipation knowing there are fish that could be biting any second.  Hope I started you in the right direction.

[typhoon]

Humminbird PiranhaMAX 240 with tri-beam.
It takes a bit of adjustment to reduce false pings in water with lots of algae, but one stretch last year wind drifting on Roche Lake that I could predict within a few feet when we would catch fish. You will often see fish holding above or near sunken logs with this unit.
With tri-beam you want to turn ON the FishID since the direction of the fish on the screen tells you which side of the boat the fish are located.

[canso]

my boat came with a low end Eagle, it was only good for depth nothing else.

But I'm installing the HDS 7 with StructureScan.

[Britguy]

I have one for sale
see buy and sell section

[HOOK]

I only run my fishin buddy at 60% because it then picks up fish only and not chunks of stuff floating in the water columns. Took a few times out to get it fine tuned, if you crank it up it will show the bottom better but you will also think there is fish everywhere LOL

[Rieber]

I like my fishfinder - it tells me where the bottom of the water is.  Kind of a nice feature when bombing up the Fraser at 4:00am.

I don't spend big money on the finders but I do like the surface temp, water depth features and whatever bottom structure echos back.

Fish, phfft, they keep moving so how does that feature help?

Oh, I do enjoy the beeps and little fish on the screen when chronie fishing - that can be exciting some days.

[Matt]

You definately have to "tune" your fish finder.

Drop something "fish-sized" over the side on a line and adjust the sensitivity of your fish finder until the object appears on the screen.

Note that you drive over the fish and they will be near your hook 20-30 seconds later.

I have an Eagle Cuda 128 - very cheap unit - about $120 - I set the sensitivity to around 72%..

Same finder, same technique for dialing in the right settings, although I've even used a dead fish.  Not many fish swim in the cone in a stillwater situation, though sometimes if you're deep enough, you might spot a couple  I don't trust mine for spotting fish at all though.