Quote:
Originally Posted by NSR Fisher
This is purely your opinion, in my experience my Lowrance unit can have 4 different types of flashers running around it with 0 interference, meanwhile I walk over to buddies hole and he's yelling at me to move away because he can't figure out how to clear up the interference on his Marcum or Vexilar...
As for target identification 2D sonar is just as good at seeing individual marks and tracking multiple fish at the same depth is easier too, with a flasher dial you simply have a big green/yellow/red blob sitting at 10 feet, with my sonar I can see 3 different marks swimming up and down chasing my lure, and with the history as you say I can scroll back and observe behavior. Or my neck gets stiff from staring at the unit, I can get up stretch look around, then peek at the history quickly to see if fish swam by. WIth a flasher dial you blink or sneeze and that mark passes your cone you will never know he was there.
I can also adjust my cone angle on my Lowrance, narrowing it for deep water and widening it for shallow water.
Penetrating weeds I find is a lot easier with my lowrance too, for example I was marking perch in thick weeds, and was able to mark my lure too. Buddie dropped his Marcum in there and it was nothing but a jumbled mess no matter if he set it to "shallow water" or what ever limited options he had. Meanwhile I have the luxury of setting a special "weeds" setting that lets me jig right in the middle of a salad patch while perfectly marking my lure.
Maybe try using 2D sonar exclusively for a season and better formulate your opinion, because I'm calling BS on 90% of what you said.
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It is my opinion and my opinion is based on using almost every fish finder and flasher on the market or at least seeing them in action. I am not basing my comments off of what my buddies with unknown quality flashers and unknown knowledge of how to use their flashers.
If you are talking the interference rejection capability of a cheap flasher then yes they aren't great. If you are talking the higher end models then no your lowrance is not better(but at times may work better depending on frequencies everyone is using etc).
Another key point I forgot to mention is target separation. Lowrance and Helix ice units are around 2 inches which is only on par with the most basic flashers. Good flashers are around 0.5 inches. Meaning on your lowrance the fish and lure become a single blob sooner and you have a hard time telling schools of small fish like perch from bigger fish.
Lowrance narrow beam is 20 degrees. Flasher narrow beam is usually 8-10 degrees and normal beam is 20 degrees... Narrow is a relative term and the narrow beam on a regular fish finder is not comparable to narrow beam on a flasher. Reason for this is when boating you want to see further to each side and are scanning the area for fish. When using a flasher you are sitting in a single location and having a narrower beam allows you to read the bottom better. Sonar shows the bottom as highest area within the cone angle so if you set up on a slope/drop off where fish often like to hold to the bottom of you will have trouble marking the fish. Same goes for areas with boulders etc(rare in AB) but I have fished a couple such spots. Try setting up your fish finder on a steep drop off, drop your lure till it hits the "bottom" on your fish finder then keep dropping it till it actually hits bottom. If you are actually on a steep drop off(and especially if in deep water) your lure will continue to fall a significant distance. If it hits bottom quick you aren't actually on the drop off(and are likely your cone radius away from the bottom of drop off instead of right at the bottom of it like you think you are).
It is that narrow beam function that helps in weeds too. If you compare wide beam flasher to normal beam fish finder they will be the same because same cone angle. Use flasher narrow beam and you will be looking at a smaller area below your hole so assuming you don't set up with a weed directly below you then you will show less clutter on the screen from the weeds. Wider the angler, the more bottom your cone covers and the more weeds you see making more clutter on the screen.
Try jigging a 1/16 oz jig or something small like that in 30 feet of water jigging for perch and let me know how that goes. I guarantee your lowrance doesn't handle that situation 1/4 as well as a good flasher does.
Feel free to call my comments BS all you want. I have used almost all the units available and I have spent more time and effort to learn and use fish finders and flashers than 99% of anglers do. I have already converted a few "My Lowrance or Humminbird Ice Unit is the best thing since sliced bread" people to flashers and am pretty sure I am not wrong in this instance...
However, as previously mentioned if GPS capability, panoptix, 360 imaging or other similar technologies like that are why you think a fish finder is better then a flasher then I can completely agree. For basic sonar capability they are not better though.
Want the best of both worlds get an LX7 or something similar which gives all the advantages of fish finder and history while also giving you far superior flasher capability. Don't even try to tell me your Lowrance is better then an LX7...