fish finder transducer on ice

[Calgaryguy1977]

Have any of you tried this? using a small portable fish finder like a phirahna max or something. I was told by a friend that you can pour water on ice then put your transducer on it and it will give you an accurate depth measurement of the water. Is this true? Does it work well, or only sometimes? any feedback or input?
TIA folks!
Cheers

[jpohlic]

As long as the ice is clear and not too thick it works

[Calgaryguy1977]

How clear and how thick are the questions lol
Would it work on spray or upper and lower K right now?

[comaderek]

I think it works but you would would probably need to use a flasher with a ice transducer not a warm weather transducer.

[The Spank]

Yes it works, I have done it often with ice as thick as two feet. You need to use a good amount of water as you need to keep the ice wet under the transducer. It’s not the greatest method but it does work for finding depth without drilling a ton of holes.

[jpohlic]

I tried it on Pigeon a while back with a Garmin Striker 5 using the CV20-TM transducer which is for open water. Not sure exactly how thick the ice was, maybe 15-16". I cleared the snow away and poured some water on the ice and it worked. I have a GT8HW-IF ice transducer on order, will try that one also, but it's only 250 watts compared to 500 of the CV20. Also not sure which frequency I was using - that would probably make a difference too.

[vic1]

I have lowrance elite 4 with ice transducer and it works very well on deep water and ice almost 3ft . It didn't work on shallow (4 - 6ft). Maybe I had it on wrong frequency.

[ROA]

I have had limited success with FLAT Bottom ice transducers that can bond well with the water poured on the ice.
I have had no success with a cheap little portable i use in the boat with a curved high speed transducer. That transducer is probably made from the cheaper temperature sensitive material. Between that, the curved surface and low power output she don't penetrate ice.

[dodgeboy1979]

i do this with my Marcum flasher all the time and it works great.

[PlayDoh]

It works. Works the same with a boat mount transducer and an ice specific one. They both emit sonar that has little trouble going through 2 feet of ice.
I never did get to testing the method suggested to me, but a guy said he used a ziplock bag with water in it, and the ducer. It sounds like it could work, yet I wouldn’t be amazed if it didn’t to be honest.
I haven’t seen a transducer with a curved surface except SI or the like. The sonar emits out the bottom of a ducer, the curved parts are just to allow the housing to be more hydrodynamic.
The quality of the ice is important. The amount of air in the ice will greatly effect the results. My best guess is it’s the air in ice that reduces the detail at all, and if there was no air at all the results would be very close to the same.
Ice ducers are more for the ease of use and such, since there not using any different frequency or anything right?
You need more then a few drops of water, and it can take a bit to get a reading, but I’ve never not been able to make it work. Cheap open water sonar, to $600 Marcum.


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[Sea Hawk]

I once read in a magazine that you should use a little bit of windshield washer fluid to keep transducer from freezing to the ice.

[DisplacedCaper]

I’ve done this with a pirannamax for a couple of seasons.
I mounted my regular transducer to a board with a weight and would hang it down a hole. Worked great.


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[raw outdoors]

I also do this all the time two tricks I have learned.
#1 this makes it work awesome 99.9% of the time, take a water bottle poor like 1/4-1/2 cup water on snow removed bare ice then place to diver intop of water. It will read very accurately with my vexilar. On the flasher you can quickly crank up the gain.
#2 if #1 doesn’t work hack off a little chunk of ice in a v patters with hatchet then put a little water in there and then the Ducer.

Way faster than drilling a bunch of holes in the wrong spots

[Dean2]

My Vexillar will easily read through even 3' of ice. If the ice is smooth enough I often don't even need water to get a reading, as long as the transducer will sit flat on the ice you are good to go. Another trick is to put the transducer in the water inside a plastic bottle with the top cut off and shoot through the bottle.

[jzz]

Thanks all the valuable info. Can this way detect fish? Or just detect depth of water?