How valuable are Vexilar type flashers?

[BassProAddict]

I'm really intrigued by this device. I have a portable Humminbird and I'v only been able to use it for depth and bottom contouring but have never interpreted it as accurately as I should especially for weeds.

I've been visiting the Vexilar HSOforum often and I must say I'm about to pull the trigger.I'm looking for a portable one since work brings me across the globe but I do try to fish the waters of wherever I am.

Are flashers all that? They do show you what's directly underneath you and it's in real time.Is this a very important gadget to have to know what's directly under you? Is this a fishfinder complementary device or is it a fishfinder alternative? I do also have an Aqua vu.

What's your take gentlemen?

[TravP]

I wouldn't ice fish without a flasher. If I was on my way to the lake and forgot it, I would turn around without blinking an eye.

[BassProAddict]

What about for open water?

[TravP]

If you do any kind of jigging then ya, a very usefull piece of equipment.

[Bass Whacker]

they are awsome for open water I would say its probably the easiest way to tell bottom composition. put one in my boat this year and it was one of the best things i've done.

[polarsusd81]

Yes, bottom content identification is quite easy with a vex/marcum/bird flasher. I think in your situation traveling constantly, a vex would be a great addition to your arsenal. If you can't always carry a fish finder with a suction cup mount, you will still be able to easily identify depth, bottom content, and whether or not weeds are present. If I had a gimbal mount and high speed ducer set up in my boat for my vex, it would be in there.

[Muddog]

The main advantage a flasher has over a graph is what you stated, it shows you what is under the boat in real time. This is good and bad. If you are looking for drop off and such a graph works best because it will show you trends of the bottom such as a slow rise or fall. It keeps a record! Now a flasher is great at showing you what is under the boat right NOW. If I’m trolling and trying to stay at one depth on a sharp drop off, the flasher can’t be beat. Plus in shallow water <6foot, the flasher can’t be beat. The down side is if your not looking at it when it happens you missed it.

If you can over come looking at the center of the screen like we all do at the movies, TV, and at our CPU’s. You could use a graph for everything but I use my flasher 50% of the time.

The only true fish finder is what's between your ears!

[BassProAddict]

Quick survey, how would y'all rank the following according to usefulness for weekend fishin':

Fishfinder (no GPS function)

Flasher

GPS

Aqua Vu

[Ray Esboldt]

BPA,

I would not own a boat without a flasher on the bow. I can tell more about bottom content, weeds, presence of deep water fish, etc. in a one second glance at a flasher than I could with any graph. It is the most important electronic accessory on my boat.

[Branta Bros.]

For ice fishing: a must... For high speed depth readings and bottom content: a must.... Slowing down and working a certain area: hu##inbird side-imaging (if ya can afford one!)Lol!.....

[BassProAddict]

So y'all here have flashers??? (about to kick self)

[Branta Bros.]

If your set on buyin a flasher for open water(which is a good idea), I would say install it in your dash and you would probly not regret it....

[BassProAddict]

I need a portable one buddy.I'm all over.

[Branta Bros.]

Well then, yeah! well worth the investment. It's the best portable "depthfinder" I know of.

[Deitz Dittrich]

I unlike Ray and Muddie do not have a flasher in my boat. I dont agree with the whole real time thing as a graph will show real time on the far right hand of the screen. And todays color graph units I believe tell you just as much about bottom comp as the flasher does. The ONLY thing I will give the flasher a nod will be reading through heavy weeds and still telling bottom comp.

Now ice fishing is a different story all together. As stated above, I will not go on the lake without one. I own 4. So when I have friends along. But I really only use them when I go on canoe trips as they are more portable in the summer months.

Quick survey, how would y'all rank the following according to usefulness for weekend fishin':

Fishfinder (no GPS function)

Flasher

GPS

Aqua Vu

This is really going to be personal pref.. and I can only answer for myself. For me it would be

#1 fishfinder(love my Bird 997)

#2GPS (allows me to stay on a spot without a marker)

#3Aqua-Vu (really teaches me what the bottom content is.)

#4Flasher

[Muddog]

Quote:

Fishfinder (no GPS function)

Flasher

GPS

Aqua Vu

I have them all in my boat. Tough "Q".

If I had never been on the lake before. I would troll to find the fishy spots. So flasher first but what good would it do if I can't get back to it later. so #2 GPS. Then if I find fish in that spot often I would like to see why thy hang there so #3 Aqua Vu.

[EBass]

Get the flasher already!

I have a color graph on the back and my vex on the bow. No GPS, No Aqua-view. So to me #1 is the graph, and a close 2nd is the vex, just because of the ducer placements.

I will not ice fish without my vex. Once you get one you'll ask yourself why didn't I get one sooner?

[BassProAddict]

Any tips on transducer beam angles? The Vex HSOforum has numerous options on the transducer angles.Do I go wide or narrow?

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Id say a wider one around 19 degrees would be best all around but I would recomend you get a Marcum LX5 with a dual beam which has both a narrow and a wide beam, I dont recall the exact angles but they are around 9 and 19. Smaller cones generaly are used more in deep water and 19 for shallower.

The marcums bright display is easy to read in sun, comes with a digital charger (set it and forget it), dual beam ducer, soft pack/carry case.

[Duffman]

I use my MarCum flasher in my boat, only because I already have it for icefishing, might as well put it to use during the summer. I also use it in my canoe, it actually gets more use there than when it's in the boat. Would I have gone with a flasher up front in the boat if I didn't have one to begin with? Probably not. My Lowrance/GPS is my main locator on the boat.

Funny little flasher story from last weekend. I was fishing a somewhat remote lake last weekend from my canoe, nothing but bass in it, both large and smallmouth. And I mean nothing but bass, I searched for other species, thought I was seeing a bunch of minnows in the shallows, but they were bass fry in various stages of growth. Best crankbait to use was a DT10 in bass color.

Anyway, when I was just canoeing around with the flasher on, I was getting bass to shoot up 10 ft off the bottom in twenty feet of water on the flasher. Why were they doing that? As best I could tell, they were coming up to see if my canoe was a worthy meal.

[EBass]

Are you getting a two ducers? Meaning one for the boat and the other for ice fishing? Or are you going to hang the ice ducer off the side of your boat?

On my boat I have the ducer mounted to my transom, but I have no idea what angle it is. For ice fishing I have the standard 12 degree as I don't fish over 30'ever.

[BassProAddict]

Odd question here: doesn't too many electronics bother/spook the fish already?

[half-dutch]

You would have a real hard time getting me on the ice without a flasher or my noodle-tipped rods, because I use them together for bite detection! I won't go on the ice without a GPS for hole location and relocation either. A graph on the ice just doesn't cut it for me, nor does an Aquaview. Open water, I normally fish shorelines and docks and so don't need any of them, but when I am running a boat I prefer a graph, and I want the GPS along then too.

In a perfect world I guess I would have them all...

In real life I use the flasher most and hardest, and the GPS very nearly as much but in a wider variety of situations.

The Aquaview is limited by the clarity of the water. Last choice for me for general fishing of any type. For just watching or making videos when the conditions are right, however, an Aquaview really shines and is a lot of fun; more of an educational toy than a fishing tool, IMO, at least for the way I fish.

[half-dutch]

Any tips on transducer beam angles? The Vex HSOforum has numerous options on the transducer angles.Do I go wide or narrow?

The dual beam is probably best if you have not already formed an opinion. I have the wide beam on my Marcum VX-1 and a narrow beam on the Vex FL-12. Personally I prefer the wide beam, because that is what I am most used to and the VX-1 also has a bottom 5 foot mag feature than I usually use anyway; my buddy gets equally good results on the narrow beam Vex. We often fish side by side and compare notes, too. We can get within about 5 or 6 feet of each other without too much interference; so if we set right we can both fish the same school or structure, and pool the information from our signals.

If you have both you will eventually find yourself using one or the other most, but also probably switching back and forth a bit for the extra information. Which you will prefer to use most will depend on what trips your trigger and that is pretty difficult to tell, until you start working them for yourself.

I ended up with the wide beam first, because I went for price points on the cheapest unit I felt was dependable, the Marcum VX-1, and I don't regret it for an instant. More important than beam angle to me, however, is the mag feature that allows your to concentrate on a particular part of the water column, on the VX-1 that is the bottom 5 feet, but on other units you can focus in on any part.

One note, if you fish deep water for bottom fish, start with the narrow beam or the cone becomes pretty wide at the bottom. I fish shallow, virtually always under 15 fow; so that is not much of an issue for me.

[TonkaBass]

There is a ton of good info here... I for one like a flasher a lot. I can tell everything I need to know about bottom content with it. I also like the LCDs a lot too. They have really come a long ways.

But if you were to give me $300 and say I could only have one, it's a no-brainer... the flasher wins hands down (heck you could probably get one for $200).