Fish finder help

[300win]

I have a hummingbird 597 fish finder and it reads struchure, shows my down rigger ball but doesn't pick up fish very often. Any ideas?
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[wiperhunter2]

Have you been using it for a while? I was having the same issue with a used GPS/fish finder I bought. I had a bow mount trolling motor in the front of my boat, that had a built in transducer for a second fish finder. The second fish finder was always showing fish but my transom mounted transducer rarely picked up those same fish. At first I figured those fish I was marking at the front of the boat just split ands went on either side of the boat, as I went by but after a while a friend told me, I had a bad transducer. I borrowed a transducer from another friend, that was selling one with the same cable and sure enough, that fixed the problem. Let me ask another question, does your depth display flash or does it always display the correct depth without flashing? When I first started having the problem like yours, it was just not showing the fish, after a while the depth display started flashing and that was when I tried a new transducer.
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[300win]

Thanks wiperhuner. That what I am thinking also. It's not flashing yet everything else seems to work just no fish. I think I will get a cable to hook it up to my trolling motor transducer and see.
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[wiperhunter2]

I still haven't replaces the cable, because I'm planning on upgrading to a better finder but I believe the problem is right at the clamps that hold the cable in place. Since it doesn't work anyway. I'm thinking about cutting the cable and resplicing it with the part of the cable than was never in a clamp. When I'm trolling I'm mainly looking to the back, so I moved my finder to the back so I can see what is going on, that gave be a bunch of cable length, so as long as the cable can be spliced, I know I have enough cable.
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[300win]

If you cut it and it works let me know. Thanks
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[wiperhunter2]

I actually have two cables, so I think I try the one that is not on my boat first, it is the worst of the two. The one on my boat still works for depth most of the time. I'll let you know what I find out but when I worked on similar type of wiring on aircraft we make splices like this from time to time and they worked well. I'll find out if it is different as soon as I make the cut[:/].
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[Kent]

Maybe you are just using it where there aren't many fish.[]
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[wiperhunter2]

Well after I repaired the transducer cable yesterday, I took it out today and gave it a try, I was impressed, I did not think it would work but it worked great. Depth reading does not flash any more and I'm seeing fish again on the finder. [cool]
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