Why flasher mode?

[billmac]

I don't know much about using fish finders yet.  A lot of them seem to have flasher mode, like really old school finders.  Why?  I doubt people are using them for nostalgia.  What purpose does it serve?

[J Francho]

I don't use flasher mode, but I always use the RTS (Real Time Scanner) mode when viewing Chirp 2D sonar.  It's in REAL TIME, not a history.  It really helps when I'm fishing deep, with a drop shot.  I can see my bait, and anything that approaches the bait.

[12poundbass]

I still use it while ice fishing, a ton of guys do actually. Some of these units like my Helix units can be used for ice fishing so win win! 

[Krux5506]

5 hours ago, J Francho said:

I don't use flasher mode, but I always use the RTS (Real Time Scanner) mode when viewing Chirp 2D sonar.  It's in REAL TIME, not a history.  It really helps when I'm fishing deep, with a drop shot.  I can see my bait, and anything that approaches the bait.

I'm honestly not a sonar guru myself but I could see RTS being beneficial out on Lake O fishing deep. Any idea if this mode is even possible on my Garmin Striker 7? If it is, I've yet to figure it out.

[J Francho]

No clue, but I do know that Raymarine and Lowrance have a similar feature.

 

[jaimeastin]

1 hour ago, Krux5506 said:

I'm honestly not a sonar guru myself but I could see RTS being beneficial out on Lake O fishing deep. Any idea if this mode is even possible on my Garmin Striker 7? If it is, I've yet to figure it out.

If RTS is delille life sonar readings on the right side of the screen, then some Garmin units have it. I love this feature on my black and white Garmin echo 200 back in the day. I could drop shot or do anything right where it's at the fish where and I can see my jig in real time as I lowered it or raise it up.

I'm not sure if I have seen it on my Garmin striker 4cv or on my echomap units.

 

I can check both units out later today or tomorrow as I'm sure I'll go fishing between this time.

 

[Team9nine]

Once upon a time, flashers were standard equipment on bass boats, the in-dash units up until the mid 2000s. Lowrance discontinued their models sometime between 2004-2009. I bought a brand new Triton back in 2002 and had in-dash Lowrance flashers front and console. But the early LCRs were becoming popular, and parts for the flasher were getting scarce from what I recall. But guys were used to flashers, and the earliest LCRs were pathetically slow, so guys would run “flasher mode” partly because they were used to it and partly because it was a RTS application. Vexilar was also a player in the digital flasher space, and I also owned one of their in-dash units after I couldn’t replace a Lowrance unit. So part of the story is just a carryover from the glowing neon bulb days  

 

The other part, as mentioned, is that flashers have always been “it” when it comes to ice fishing, and so there has always been a market for good digital flashers in the north. I believe Vexilar has long dominated that market, but frugal anglers have converted existing traditional units from off their boats to portable ones out on the ice, and utilized the flasher mode found on most units these days. Back as early as 2003, Humminbird even had special settings on some of their units when utilizing flasher mode along with ice fishing mode.

[WRB]

The far right 1/4" edge of most sonar units is real time sonar returns being displayed before scrolling across the screen. The flasher mode displays  a circular pattern in lieu of the vertical bar for convince, the data is already available.

Tom