Ice fishing fishfinder

[farmpond1]

Gang,

It's nearing the season where visions of ice fishing begin to dance in my head.  I already have a color fishfinder and was hoping to convert it to a portable unit for ice fishing.  There are a few things which prompt me to ask this question rather than just going out and buying another unit:  First, I'm cheap.  I don't want to go out and buy another unit if I don't have to.  Second, I'm cynical (or can be).  The makers of ice fishing units will have you believe that you need one that's optimized for fishing in below freezing temperatures (rugged) and faster (such as a flasher) or both.  Is this bonafide or just hooey designed to reallocate money from my pocket to theirs?

[Lund Explorer]

Well Farmpond, you've still got a few days to go sit on Santa's lap.  And when you do, make sure to tell him the only thing you want this year is a brand new Vexilar.  If you're afraid that you'll be in bold print on the naughty list, then you'll have to pull out the plastic.

Yeah, the Vexilar IS that good.

I bought my first FL-8 back in 1991 and would never think of going onto the ice without it.  It was hard to believe, but after a little while, I could tell if there was a wax worm still on my tear drop.  Also, as fish would start to enter into the cone, they would show up as a light green bar.  If my bait was not at the same level, I could move it to that depth.  then as the signal started to go from green, to orange, and finally to red..... Bang there would be the bite.

On days with a tougher bite, I learned that you could judge the mood of the fish by the jigging action you put on the bait as the fish neared it.  Imagine seeing a fish move from light green to red and then back to light green before fading away.  that would tell me that whatever action I was using didn't work.  The next fish to move under the hole would get a diffrenet action until I found the one that would trigger strikes.

And suspended fish?  No problem with a Vexilar.  No more using a weight to set depth or find bottom with.  No more adjusting a bobber until you find them.  My normal day of ice fishing starts with me drilling a series of holes, and then moving from the first through to the end of the line until I see fish.

Have you seen the thread over on Gen'l about live bait being cheating?  Well when the guys first saw me using my Vexilar, that was the same comment I got.  If you are serious about ice fishing and catching, then I can't imagine you'd be sorry for the investment.

I'd seriously look at picking up a new FL-12.

[farmpond1]

Yeah, the Vexilar IS that good.

I could tell if there was a wax worm still on my tear drop. Also, as fish would start to enter into the cone, they would show up as a light green bar. If my bait was not at the same level, I could move it to that depth. then as the signal started to go from green, to orange, and finally to red..... Bang there would be the bite.

On days with a tougher bite, I learned that you could judge the mood of the fish by the jigging action you put on the bait as the fish neared it. Imagine seeing a fish move from light green to red and then back to light green before fading away. that would tell me that whatever action I was using didn't work. The next fish to move under the hole would get a diffrenet action until I found the one that would trigger strikes.

So, with the vexilar, does it turn from green to orange to red as the object gets closer to the center of the "cone"? That sounds awesome!

I've been doing some basic research and was having a little difficulty comprehending how to read a "round" flasher unit. Does it become second nature after awhile? There is at least one brand, Showdown, that has a vertical display to represent the water column. But it appears to not be in color. Color that changes (as you've described) sounds really useful (and entertaining).

How do you tell if your waxworm is there? Is the line thicker? Since everything is represented by lines, it takes some getting used to, huh?

Illinois has a rather small window of opportunity for safe ice fishing. That's one reason I was thinking of going "cheap." But maybe it's worth it. I'm thinking of skipping some ski trips this year and driving North for ice fishing instead. I think I have a buddy who might join me.

Thanks for your advice.

[Lund Explorer]

I'm going to bounce around in my reply here. 

To start, your final comment that your time is limited on the ice.  I know exactly what you mean when you said that.  As a person who makes a large portion of their income preparing tax returns (during ice fishing season), my time on the ice is also restricted.  But I used the reverse logic as the reason to spend my money on one of these things.  With so few days to be on the ice, I wanted to maximize my chances when I could get out.

Now, with regards to flashers.  They do have a slight learning curve if you have never used one.  A flasher unit will do somethings an LCD can't, and an LCD does other things better.  The biggest issue when on the ice deals with "the picture" being updated faster, while not having to deal with the historical picture that scrolls across the screen of an LCD.

The concept of a flasher's picture is that you are looking at a series of brief images set on something that looks like the dial of a clock.  The surface is always set at "Noon".  As an example, if your flasher is set for 20' and you are currently over 10' of water, you will see a broad band sitting in the 6 o'clock position.  15' of water would put you at 9 o'clock, and so on.  If your unit is set to shallow, say in 30', you won't get the bottom echo at all, and you will need to set the flasher to a deeper setting.  With the deeper setting (say 40'), now the 10' reading would come in at 1/4 of the dial, or 3 o'clock.  You always want to set the flasher at the minimum depth you can get away with.  It allows you to see the most detail.

Now let's go back to that 20' setting, and set up in that 10' of water.  Your dial shows a bottom echo that isn't going to move or change.  You may even see a second echo further down the dial that you can disregard for now as it is only a secondary echo.  What you watch for are the brief flashes that show up between Noon and 6. 

When I first get on the ice, I set my gain button on my unit to the day's conditions.  To do this, I will drop my teardrop w/waxworm on it dow towards bottom.  You will be able to watch the echo from this slowly move down the dial.  Then I adjust the gain until my bait shows up as a small orange echo with a touch of green on either side.  Now, if the waxworm is missing, the signal will change to only a green band.  This adjustment can be done with a variety of baits such as perch minnows, or larger baits for walleyes, lake trout, or pike.

A brief item on signals.  Just like any other fishfinder, the signal is sent out in a cone shape.  On a Vexilar, the flasher reads the strength of each signal and shows them in color based on that strength.  So, a fish near the outside of the cone shows up as the weakest signal (green) while targets closer show up as either orange, or red (strongest).  Note that your gain setting will also have an effect on these readings.

Once you have the gain set on the unit, you're ready to do the catching part.  Like I said before hand, I usually start my day on the ice by drilling a series of holes.  These either spread down a drop line from shallow to deep, or broadly across a flat.  Once all the hole are drilled, the gain is set, its time to start looking for fish.  I do this by moving from hole to hole, looking for solid echos somewhere between Noon and where ever bottom shows up.  Sometimes you'll see bright red echos (those are fish) and can immediately drop down your line.  Other times, you may see just a brief glimmer of green.  If you wait at the hole, the signal may strengthen as the fish moves deeper into the cone's signal under the hole.

A typical days will have me cover a number of holes.  Once I find a hole with fish, I will stay put to see if I can get them to bite.  As fish typically move around a bit, some holes can dry up.  When this happens, I just repeat my search of the holes looking for one with a school moving under it.

Back to that double echo off bottom.  With time, you can read that echo to tell what type of bottom you are fishing over based on the echo.  It's kind of like seeing a bottom echo for the first time on a color LCD -vs- the B&W's version called "grey-scale".

Yeah, all of this takes a little time to learn, and I got most of my education by trial and error.  To see some of this (and much more) you can go to Vexilar's website.  They have a bunch of videos that show off their features.

Disclaimer:  Just in case anyone was wondering, no I don't work @ Vexilar.  They are not a client.  I'm not even married to the owner's daughter.  I've just become a very big fan of their product.

[Uncle Leo]

Nothing fishes through the ice like a Vexilar. I would never fish without mine unless I am in 3-5 feet of water. Next to my rods this is the most importnat ice fishing equipemnt I own.

[farmpond1]

Thanks for the advice.  It is helpful.

I went to the Vexilar website and did some studying up.  Something confuses me a bit, though.  The website says that a large fish on the outside edge of a sonars "cone" may actually be depicted as red while a smaller fish which is actually closer to the center of the "cone" may only show as orange or even green.  This doesn't make sense.  Why doesn't the small fish show as red small band of light and the outside larger fish show as green, larger band of light.  Can't a fish finder figure this out?  It seems easy enough.  Or am I missing something?

[Lund Explorer]

Thanks for the advice. It is helpful.

I went to the Vexilar website and did some studying up. Something confuses me a bit, though. The website says that a large fish on the outside edge of a sonars "cone" may actually be depicted as red while a smaller fish which is actually closer to the center of the "cone" may only show as orange or even green. This doesn't make sense. Why doesn't the small fish show as red small band of light and the outside larger fish show as green, larger band of light. Can't a fish finder figure this out? It seems easy enough. Or am I missing something?

I understand what you are saying.  I think its going to common in any sort of fishfinder whether its a flasher or LCD.  You might be able to get that signal toned down, but it is a matter of trying to set the gain down that far.  Most of my ice fishing is one for bluegill and crappie, though I do go after walleyes as well.  I think about it this way.  When I'm after bluegill or crappie, I'm using a small lure for a relatively small fish.  For these times it is pretty easy to set the gain down as I described above.  But I have seen what you are talking about when I'm wallete fishing.  Most of that fishing is done with a jigging rapala, jigging spoon, or with a rather large minnow on a live bait rig.  At these times, I have a hard time getting just a plain green/organge/green signal for the bait.  What I do get, is a smallish red signal.  About the best way to see if a walleye or other bigger fish is nearby is to raise the bait to see if a signal stays at the depth I was fishing at.  Also, it depends on the depth you are fishing if this is really a big issue.  The cone is rather small at shallower depths.  So even if that big fish is on the outside of the cone, it is still within range to see that larger bait and react to it.

Hope this helps.

[Wayne P.]

For more versitility, a regular LCR color unit that has a choice of a flasher screen and/or RTS (real time sonar) will do the same as the Vexilar flasher units.

Several Lowrance and Humminbird units have those features. Any sonar unit can be made portable.

This is a screen on the Humminbird 798ci SI

[Wayne P.]

This is Lowrance's ice fishing setup based on one of their compact color LCR units:

http://www.lowrance.com/Products/Marine/IceMachine-Portable-Fishfinders/X67C-IceMachine/

[fooman]

A flasher(or unit that has the flasher screen) is the way to go..

When I 1st started ice fishing I converted a Humminbird "Jimmy Houston" pro flasher for the ice and it helped catch many of fish..PITA jumping from hole to hole and leveling the transducer but it did the job..

Now I have the Vex with the self leveling transducer and its much more efficient.The only difference between the Humminbird and the new ice flashers(Vex,Marcum,Humminbird,Lowrance) is the colored lines..

Once you take a flasher onto the ice its only minutes before you learn how to use it,its that easy

I've shown kids how to use it and its like playing a video game to them..it really keeps them interested in the sport..

I also have a Lowrance X67 on my pond boat that I use in flasher mode on open water that would make a great ice until

[farmpond1]

Gang,

Thanks for all your input.  I broke down and got a Humminbird Ice 35.  It was a toss up between that unit and a Vexilar FL 8SE.  They were exactly the same price and the only reason I bought the Humminbird is that the FL 8SE (or, more accurately, the earlier version of the FL 8) has been out for years and some of it's electronics may be "antiquated."  I don't know if my logic would hold up under scrutiny but that's how I decided.  And the screen for the Humminbird seemed brighter.  But Vexilar has a great reputation so I don't know if I made the best choice.  Anyway, it's time to where I get out and practice with it.  Kinda tough because the ice makes it impossible to take my boat out on the lake but too thin to walk on it.  Guess I'll find a floating dock and drill some thin holes on the edge.

Thanks again for all your input.  Good luck with your ice fishing!