Finder vs Flasher

[fourty12]

I know that there was a thread about flashers a while back that also talked about fish finders but I wanted to revisit the topic. Can a fish finder such as the Humminbird PiranhaMAX 170 (on sale at BPS for $125) be used through the ice? The price difference between finders and flashers is significant and if I can use a finder through the ice, I can also use it on my boat in the summer... killing 2 birds with 1 device. Any advice would be great.

No reason not to use it on the ice. Flashers definitely give a quicker update of what's beneath you but an LCD sonar unit will work just fine. I'm not familiar with the Humminbird but sure it will work just fine.

[Fishfinder]

Originally Posted by fourty12

I know that there was a thread about flashers a while back that also talked about fish finders but I wanted to revisit the topic. Can a fish finder such as the Humminbird PiranhaMAX 170 (on sale at BPS for $125) be used through the ice? The price difference between finders and flashers is significant and if I can use a finder through the ice, I can also use it on my boat in the summer... killing 2 birds with 1 device. Any advice would be great.

I purchased a boat last year with all luxuries including the Hummingbird ff (model??) - too cold to check ha), never did try n figure out how to use it, busy catchin fish....but it lookd and still does look like nice n sharp....I would find fishing not as fun if I knew where the fish were?? ff's take the fishn, outta fishn? Eliminates the thrill of the hunt but that's jus my opinion. My advice - bogart the ff idea and seek n destroy! Underwater cam however......

[mangler]

I bought the Humminbird 345c and tried it a couple of weeks ago on the ice. It works really well. The general consensus amongst flasher fans is definitely that the finder doesn't show you what is down there in "real-time". I can only assume that they must be basing their opinions on old LCD technology. A friend and I compared it directly against his ICE35 flasher, and if there is any difference at all (I couldn't see any, but he claimed to), we both agreed it would have to be measured in micro-seconds.

With its electronic flasher mode, the finder gives me the best of both worlds. I've found that I prefer the graph display, but the flasher mode works well too. And it's QUIET! The constant droning of a flasher does get annoying after a while.

The only thing I don't like is that the 345c comes with the skimming transducer, which will require you to rig up some kind of a mounting mechanism for it. An ice transducer would be better, and is available for this unit for an extra $90, but would have to be ordered in. The Lowrance x65c Ice Machine - if you can find one locally - includes the ice transducer and costs a few dollars less as well.

I purchased the finder with reservations about whether or not it would work well, and actually expected that I'd probably have to return it for a flasher. I'm happy to report that such is not the case - it works excellent - and I see no need to purchase a flasher.

[mangler]

Originally Posted by Fishfinder

I purchased a boat last year with all luxuries including the Hummingbird ff (model??) - too cold to check ha), never did try n figure out how to use it, busy catchin fish....but it lookd and still does look like nice n sharp....I would find fishing not as fun if I knew where the fish were?? ff's take the fishn, outta fishn? Eliminates the thrill of the hunt but that's jus my opinion. My advice - bogart the ff idea and seek n destroy! Underwater cam however......

When you're fishing in 12ft of water, your sonar cone is no wider than a few feet at the bottom, so you'll see when something is swimming up to your hook, but it's sure as heck not going to tell you where the fish are.

[dugh]

fourty, never used a flasher but either one will tell you what depth the fish are at ( if they pass under your hole ). If your bait is at 24ft. and your marking fish at 16 you can adjust.
Saw Bearbait using a ff a few seasons ago at Carson, he only outfished us by about a 1,000,000 to 1. Next day I fabbed up something similar for the transducer.
Thanks again Bearbait for the tips and sharing some of your bait.
Doug

[honker_clonker]

I would call myself somewhat of a junkie when it comes to ice electronics. Had the camera for 7 or 8 years, and experimented with LCD fishfinders for a few before buying a vexilar. I love my flasher. The graph has its place too. Graphs from my experience are just slightly less desirable than a flasher IN MY EYES because for the most part it is not as easy to tell the position of a fish relative to your lure.

I messed around with a eagle 320 for about 3 years before taking the plunge into flasher land. With the graph all you see is a line where your hook is and a line where the fish is. This is good enough to alert you to the presence of fish and a thicker bar means its more under the cone but when a large pike is sitting on the edge of your cone it looks like its right on your bait. With the flasher and the 3 color display with the 3 colors indicating different return strengths you can get an idea of where it is relative to your lure. This is what i like about it.

One thing i did notice with the liquid crystal graph was a drop off of performance when it was cold outside (-20). The eagle was meant to be used in the summer and the crystals would either thicken up or freeze or something making it totally useless without being thawed out. I'm not saying all will do this or any will do this, the finder I have is 6 years old, and they have come a long way since then so I would imagine they have better features than that one does. Also if you fish in a heated tent it should be fine.

Most flashers come set up for ice fishing so you just have to plunk the ice ducer in the hole. With the graph i had to rig up some sort of hockey stick contraption that worked but wasnt as nice as the flasher in that department. There are graph/flasher combos out there that are relatively inexpensive (relative to flashers) and you can get GPS in some of them. I think lowrance has one of the ice machines that has a graph, flasher AND GPS. (Scratch that its discontinued but its the ice machine 68 in case you want to find it). If I was looking from an economical stand point I would buy this one. You get the best of all worlds. You throw it in your boat in the summer, mark all the awesome spots you find and then when theres a lid on it you know where to go, instead of having all your electronics dangling off of you.

Flashers arent super expensive but it would be hard to find one for cheap. Marcum's base model is in the high 200's or low 300's but it has alot of features for what you pay. I went with vexilar because they have been around for 50 years or so and it had all of the features I was looking for in a unit. FL 20 ultrapack is a nice unit. It was expensive but worth it to me because i have caught alot more fish with it. In the shallows its a early warning system for walleyes and the like, its gives you that split second to prepare instead of going on purely reaction. Took it out with some of my fishing partners for the first time and they were scoffing at it while i went 5/5 in about a hour of walleye fishing. They missed alot of hits because they were reacting instead of striking.

Flashers and fish finders will both help you find fish my eliminating dead water. I start out by drilling about 50 holes in an area i want to fish and then walk around with the flasher looking for something down there. (This would be more for perch). You dip the ducer, take a look for any signs of life and if there is you fish it, if not keep on truckin. The first 5 minutes of a hole usually produce more than the next 25 if you sit there and fish it. Its shock and awe and then when it slows down, move on. You catch the more active fish and cover more water.

Moral of the story they both have their place, they both will make you catch more fish but for value and versatility the pirhana would get the nod. I liked my graph but i wont go on the ice without the flasher.

[hockey1099]

I talked to guys at the TFH and WSS. Both told me FishFinders and Flashers are a waste of time. Both said save your money and use it to buy a camera. They both recommended black and white as the clarity of our lakes do not allow the color cameras to work properly( ie you only see shades of gray). The biggest issue with sonar was that your only going to see right below your hole and both said if you want to see there just look down the hole.

[Mudslide]

I also have a flasher and have used my LCD graphs on the ice in the past. It did slow down in extreme cold but I'm not sure that hasn't been addressed in the newer units. If I was buying one right now that I wanted for dual season use I would go with the Lowrance M68 kit with GPS, multiple transducers and a soft pac case. It even has a suction cup for portable use on any boat. (fly ins etc) http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/te...233&hasJS=true

I haven't seen these in Canada but Cabela's sells them. These units have a flasher mode that looks exactly the same. It's not perfect could use more power and a dual frequency transducer but it's a nice unit none the less. OTOH I would never go golfing with just a five iron even though I could. I upgraded to the Marcum LX5 this year and can't wait to try it out. Next week.

[pikester]

Originally Posted by mangler

I bought the Humminbird 345c and tried it a couple of weeks ago on the ice. It works really well. The general consensus amongst flasher fans is definitely that the finder doesn't show you what is down there in "real-time". I can only assume that they must be basing their opinions on old LCD technology. A friend and I compared it directly against his ICE35 flasher, and if there is any difference at all (I couldn't see any, but he claimed to), we both agreed it would have to be measured in micro-seconds.

With its electronic flasher mode, the finder gives me the best of both worlds. I've found that I prefer the graph display, but the flasher mode works well too. And it's QUIET! The constant droning of a flasher does get annoying after a while.

The only thing I don't like is that the 345c comes with the skimming transducer, which will require you to rig up some kind of a mounting mechanism for it. An ice transducer would be better, and is available for this unit for an extra $90, but would have to be ordered in. The Lowrance x65c Ice Machine - if you can find one locally - includes the ice transducer and costs a few dollars less as well.

I purchased the finder with reservations about whether or not it would work well, and actually expected that I'd probably have to return it for a flasher. I'm happy to report that such is not the case - it works excellent - and I see no need to purchase a flasher.

The biggest difference between finders & flashers is the readout. Finders do posess "real time" capability but it is only a narrow slice of the screen on the right side of the readout called the "RTS window" (on Humminbirds). The rest of the screen is the sonar history which is just that, previous data. In a moving boat this is great but when stationary the history screen can get cluttered & slightly confusing for a few moments.

The flashers on the other hand provide brand new information on screen every tenth of a second or so thereby eliminating the laggy "tracer lines" which scroll across a sonar screen. For example when I have my lure under a flasher unit I can literaly "see" the lure on the flasher screen jump up & down instantaneously while leaving the display clear of any lines or marks showing where my lure was just half a second ago.

As far as the "speed" of flashers vs sonar in terms of the actual signal, they are nearly the same. If you have access to both try turning both machines on & listen to the clicks comming from each transducer one at a time, you will notice little if any difference between the two.

I'm not saying that sonars don't work on ice because I have a Humminbird 728 which I tried to use last winter but found it slightly confusing to read; as there were several times lines showed up across my screen that seemed like fish but I was in 12 -14ft of clear water & I KNOW there were no fish down there I suspect the lines on the screen may have been "ghost trails" from my fishing line but I was never able to figure it out.

Also since most sonar units (like my 728) are not designed for ice fishing they don't come with a nice, compact carrying system so you have to build your own. I built mine out of a 7"x8"x11" hard case cooler which was all right but by the time I stuck a plywood mounting base in the bottom to screw the gimbal mount to & set the gel battery in, the whole unit was quite hefty. Also it tipped over quite easy (once ice started melting & sticking to the bottom) & the transducer had to be mounted on a 2ft long dowel with tripod legs (to keep the tranducer at the proper angle & near the bottom of the hole) as well as having 5ft of transducer cable hanging out for freedom of movement. Needless to say the whole rig was quite cumbersome.

In comparison, the Ice 55 is compact & very portable & I can read the display about 80% quicker & easier than a sonar screen.

It's all a matter of perspective I guess.

[Mudslide]

I don't know what they are smoking over there but a flasher is a far more versatile tool for fishing than a camera. The camera is limited by water clarity and light conditions and it only shows the view at the depth where the camera is. A good sonar shows you the entire water column, works day or night and works in murky water. No contest unless all you do is fish in clear shallow water

Originally Posted by hockey1099

I talked to guys at the TFH and WSS. Both told me FishFinders and Flashers are a waste of time. Both said save your money and use it to buy a camera. They both recommended black and white as the clarity of our lakes do not allow the color cameras to work properly( ie you only see shades of gray). The biggest issue with sonar was that your only going to see right below your hole and both said if you want to see there just look down the hole.

[hockey1099]

Originally Posted by Mudslide

I don't know what they are smoking over there but a flasher is a far more versatile tool for fishing than a camera. The camera is limited by water clarity and light conditions and it only shows the view at the depth where the camera is. A good sonar shows you the entire water column, works day or night and works in murky water. No contest unless all you do is fish in clear shallow water

Was surprised to get that response twice as well. I mean they had a sucker on the hook i spent well over a $1200.00 on ice fishing gear in the last 2 weeks. On Sunday WSS had a 10% discount from 6-8 pm spent 450 on that occasion.

I have a portable fish finder that i was gonna rig up for ice fishing but im not sure if i will now. It wont be bothered by the cold as i bought a decent heater and would put it next to it.

[honker_clonker]

Originally Posted by Mudslide

I don't know what they are smoking over there but a flasher is a far more versatile tool for fishing than a camera. The camera is limited by water clarity and light conditions and it only shows the view at the depth where the camera is. A good sonar shows you the entire water column, works day or night and works in murky water. No contest unless all you do is fish in clear shallow water

+1 to this! Flashers and sonar > Camera

[pikester]

Originally Posted by hockey1099

Was surprised to get that response twice as well. I mean they had a sucker on the hook i spent well over a $1200.00 on ice fishing gear in the last 2 weeks. On Sunday WSS had a 10% discount from 6-8 pm spent 450 on that occasion.

I have a portable fish finder that i was gonna rig up for ice fishing but im not sure if i will now. It wont be bothered by the cold as i bought a decent heater and would put it next to it.

I would say if the portable is all you have right now & won't be in a reasonable position to purchase a flasher in the near future then use it! Follow some of the ideas I provided in my previous post in regards to building a case & add some of your own to come up with something better. You may find (like I did) that next year an actual flasher unit is more atractive to you but by all means use what you have now, it's better thatn nothing. Besides if you're handy with tools & have some good ideas you might be able to come up with a kick@#$ carry case!

I'm also one of those guys who decided on a flasher over a camera & have not been regretting it. There are situations where a camera can come in handier than a flasher/sonar such as when you are bombing lots of holes across a shallow to mid-depth mud flat trying to find a few rocks or weeds which will likely hold fish, or when more than one species of fish are nearby & you want to quickly identify what your after. Most times however I believe a flasher/sonar is more useful than a camera.

[honker_clonker]

I found a cheap plastic tool box at canadian tire that fit everything and worked when i used my graph, just drill out some holes and away you go.

[AlbertaAngler]

I use a cheap humminbird portable as well. I use it in the winter and and the summer on my pontoon boat. It does everything I want it to - depth (with a water bottle you can find depth without drilling holes), shows my lure and shows fish. Does it do it as well as a flasher? Probably not. Personally I kind of like having the history, you can see where the fish started rising to the lure and then when you hook it and haul'er up.

[eyewhomper]

ive been using cameras for about 7 yrs and just last year i decided to try the fl-20 vexilar flasher and it is by far more useful for locating fish and depths i dont even take the camera out of the truck no more. ive definately tripled my fish take with the flasher

[TroutHunter]

Originally Posted by hockey1099

I talked to guys at the TFH and WSS. Both told me FishFinders and Flashers are a waste of time. Both said save your money and use it to buy a camera. They both recommended black and white as the clarity of our lakes do not allow the color cameras to work properly( ie you only see shades of gray). The biggest issue with sonar was that your only going to see right below your hole and both said if you want to see there just look down the hole.

I had the same thing at WSS , I asked to look at the Humminbird Ice 55 flasher and the guy behind the counter told me it was a waste of money and tried to sell me on a portable fish finder that was more than half the price. His reasoning was that flashers were just way to hard to read.

[Dougie55]

Really bothers me that salespeople in the fishing stores would tell anyone that cameras are better than sonars. They are not really to be used in the same way. Cameras WILL NOT show you contour etc, like sonar models do. They show you a picture just like any camera. If it is clear in the water, and you wish to see in a direction then yes they are fine, and that is what I use mine for. To see contour, weeds, and such, you need a sonar. I have all the toys, and I like to think that most of the experienced fisherman, guides, and tourney guys will tell you that a flasher is probably your best bet for ice fishing. They are NOT hard to use, when shown how to use them, and though they do not show a picture of a fish, you are seeing exactly what is going on in the cone area below you. You can certainly use typical finders as well, but for all I have researched, they still give you a general idea of what is coming into your cone area, and project that across a screen, which takes a bit more time than flashers, but not nearly as badly as it was 10-15 yrs ago.
I worked for a fishing store in Edm, and know a lot of the guys in some of the stores here, and would really be surprised if they told you a camera was the answer to finding fish.
Most of finding fish is looking at maps, asking questions, and checking out structure. The sonars and such help, for sure, but they don't account for weather change, light changes, etc.. That comes from being out there and fishing. In my mind, to find structure, and such for the winter, stick with a flasher.