Thru Hull Transducer

[kunes]

I have an Eagle 320 depthfinder. The muskrats chewed thru the transducer cable for the second time. I'm either gonna have to sleeve the cable or go with a thru hull transducer. Does anyone have first hand experience with them? I wonder if the thru hulls require a unit with more power. Its a fiberglass hull.

[J White]

I have owned / fished out of several older boats that had transducers
epoxied in the sump - It did severely impact the sensitivity of them.
You had to turn the gain wide open just to get a bottom return in deeper
water. Of course these were older sonar units too - I remember
back when LCD units were fairly new, the top of the line models were
probably not as good as the entry level models now. Just in the 10 years
or so since I rigged my present boat, you can now buy a unit with 480
vertical pixels and 1500 watts or more of power for what I payed for
240 and 600... If it were me, I'd probably try to armor the cable!
p.s. if you have a place in the bottom of your boat big enough, you can
play with it using a regular skimmer transducer just to see if you like it...
take a short piece of pvc pipe or similar and silicone it down to the hull -
fill it with water and drop the transducer over in it. It has to be in a place
with only one solid layer of glass, like the bottom of the bilge area. If you
decide to do it permanent though, don't use silicone under the trans. itself -
it is supposed to hurt something, don't remember what. Use epoxy, and
smear it around while pushing down to get all the air bubbles worked out.

[skiptomylu]

I now have a pontoon so have to have the transducer on the transom, however I have used a through hull in the last few bass boats I owned and had no trouble.

If I could put this one so the stumps would not knock it out of line or even breaking the plastic bracket where it attaches to the rear. You can not fish this lake without hitting stumps. Most of this lake is flooded Forrest and only the boat lanes, flats and a few old fields are stump free. I used glue this last time it broke and just hope not to have to replace it. All it takes is easing through the stumps to get to your fishing spot and if you get on a stump and that stump slips off the back when the boat drops down hitting the stump, either it's broke or moved to a different angle making it useless.

I am sure power is key though.

[Barnacle Bill]

I have an Eagle 320 depthfinder. The muskrats chewed thru the transducer cable for the second time. I'm either gonna have to sleeve the cable or go with a thru hull transducer. Does anyone have first hand experience with them? I wonder if the thru hulls require a unit with more power. Its a fiberglass hull.

Fiberglass is no problem for thru the hull xducers. You need to use a special adhesive so there are no bubbles in it. Also I don't think your temp will work properly if its in the xducer (if you have one). I don't know much about muskrats except the youger ones are good eating. Electricians use a product called wire mold. In comes in plastic and metal and can be applied without cutting the wire. We use to use it to keep squirrels from chewing thru our telephone wires. Lowes and Hone Depot carry it and may be worth looking into. Hope that helps.

[TAE73]

If it has a built-in temp it will only show the temp inside of the boat. Which probably will get a close air temp reading if it has a vent or some type of opening.

[boat49]

I have a thru the hull setup on my boat and have had no problems with it. I have used transom mounted units that got knocked around alot and got mud that made them useless until fixed. TAE mentioned a good point that im going to test, on the temp reading. DUMMIE me..i hadnt even thought of that!!!