how much does transducer size matter?

[howellcanufish]

I am planning on purchasing an fl-18 or lx-3 this winter and I'm curious as to what kind of coverage I will have with the different transducers...what will a 12 degree cover at 10' of water versus 40' of water and so on with the 20 degree? Info on which seems to be a better unit between the vexlar and marcum would also be appreciated.

[PerchJerker]

Transducer angle tells you how big the cone will be or how much of the bottom you will see. In deep water you want a narrower cone or smaller degree transducer, in shallow water you want a wider or higher degree transducer. 20 degrees is a good compromise for Minnesota waters where you'll probably be fishing 10 - 40 feet most of the time. If undecided I would go with a narrower cone angle - you'll see less of the bottom but in my opinion that's better than having too big of a cone.

[efgh]

I was told, a transducer reading of the bottom is shaped like the bottom half of a O, the more degrees, the wider the bottom half is, if I understood the man right a fish could be 4 or 5 ft. off the bottom on a wide angle trans. and the vex would show it on the bottom. Sounds fishy to me,but I'm pretty gulliable.

[Paul Waldowski]

Here a couple of illustrations that should help explain this. As you can see in the third pic, in some applications, the wider the ducer cone, the bigger the blind spot. Hope this helps explain some of this.

[efgh]

Thanks Paul, I think I got it now.

[andy j]

For that reason alone, Thats why I think a Dual cone angle tranducer 8/20 is the best of both worlds, The narrower 8 dergree is great for walleyes because in a lot of cases you are fishing breaks and the fish are very close to bottom and unwilling to come up in the water column for a bait. And the 20 degree is great for panfish or any suspended fish of the bottom.

[howellcanufish]

Thanks guys for the info.

[Iceboy]

I prefer to have the bigger-angled transducers since I seldom fish more than 30 feet of water and I really just want to know when a fish is in the vicinity (I don't fish breaks much). In fact, I bought a 19 degree transducer for my FL-18 shortly after I purchased it since I didn't feel like I could see fish soon enough with the 12 degree transducer that comes standard with the FL-18 (at least in shallower water).

hope this helps!

dan

[Bob/Mn]

Vexilar.com has cone angle info listed on there web site.

[caseymcq]

Those were some good answers to the age old question of "How much does size matter?"... Transducer size that is