Do you love big bluegill?

1/29/14 Before the four Crappie

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Comment by John Sheehan on January 31, 2014 at 8:11am: David ,My flasher unit, pictured here , is a Humingbird ICE-35 Tri-color ,costs $300.00.Very useful for ice fishing as it saves me energy by preventing me from cutting unproductive holes and giving up a fish hole too quickly. It tells me if there are fish there or not .Fish show up as moving targets either coming in from the side of the transducer cone or coming up off bottom and the color yellow and Green show that .If it's your lure it will show up and you can see the dropping green line representing your offering. The unit is very sensitive and even shows a small barrel swivel or tiny ice fly. You are way more mechanical minded than I am and think you would be better than me at using it after one try . The trick is to adjust the sensitivity so it shows a clear reading of bottom and your lure .Hard bottom is a wide red mark and wide yellow or green is softer bottom . Quick flashing moving targets are active fish ,that's exciting to see .Fish moving slower show as a slowly moving line and not much flashing .Using this unit help me quickly find the zone to put and work my bait at . I learned to use it first watching a you tube video ,then reading sections of the manual from the hummingbird site and finally getting out on the ice and seeing fish rise to my lure and catching them . Its my second ice season with this unit .

Comment by David, aka, "McScruff" on January 30, 2014 at 7:34pm: Thanks Tony

Comment by Tony Livingston on January 30, 2014 at 7:22pm: It's an X67C Ice machine.

Comment by David, aka, "McScruff" on January 30, 2014 at 6:43pm: Oh, thats nice - a two for one. I like things that serve more than one purpose.

What is the model number of that unit?

Comment by Tony Livingston on January 30, 2014 at 6:40pm: I also use an LCD Lowrance unit, that gives me the option of displaying either one.....a flasher, or a graph. like Vince, I use mine year-round. Flasher on the ice, and graph on the boat.

Comment by David, aka, "McScruff" on January 30, 2014 at 6:23pm: Thanks, Tony.

I note Vince Fusco, fellow Dixie angler, uses one. In a land where the LCD scrolling types dominate, this is something of an anomaly. HE suggests it is useful for determining structural elements, bottom composition and I would suppose, some idea of what is swimming beneath. That is a good endorsement.

I do know the response of these units is, in essence immediate, since they lack a delay when displaying information. That could be useful when motoring at high speed. But as you say, unless I use one and get educated with it, well, I can only guess.

Thanks for your encouraging words.

Comment by Tony Livingston on January 30, 2014 at 6:14pm: Scruff, you're dead on.....individual preferences, along with machine variances among different manufacturers, leads to quite the array of different displays. It can look confusing, but I know that a few minutes spent fiddling with it while someone explains the how's and the where's would have you up and running like a pro. You would take to it like...well, like a fish to water.

It opens up a whole other dimension.

Comment by David, aka, "McScruff" on January 30, 2014 at 5:45pm: Tony,

I lived in MN and WI years ago, on and off. But as a kid we didn't have a flasher. Later, as an adult, I fished with my cousins first husband. But I never learned to use his, and it wasn't nearly as colorful or elaborate as this one, as I recall. Each one I see here seems to have its own way of presenting info - at the very least each guy "tunes" his a different way.

I grasp the concept. Its the subtleties of WHAT is displayed and HOW that I have no experience with.

Comment by Vince Fusco on January 30, 2014 at 3:47pm: I still use a old Lorance flasher in open water. It works great,for not only knowing what type of structure is below, and for also locating fish. Perhaps one day I will invest in a side scan, but for now my flasher does a good job.