giul59,
Maybe I am missing something here. If there is stuff (plankton) in the upper part of the water column the sounder is going to display it specially with your transducer. Lowering the gain is going to lower the DFF3's total sensitivity through out the total water column. If you want to lower the sensitivity in the upper part of the water column try using the TVG (Time Varied Gain) control.
Snips