Handheld sonar depth finders (electronic ones)?

[KrashR]

Does anyone have any experience with the different models they make? As far as I know, vexilar, stikemaster, and marcum make them. I just got the blue strikemaster one for Christmas, I thought the new one tells the temperature as well, but maybe that was the marcum one I was looking at. Do any of them work better than the other, I was hoping I wouldn't have to use water on top of the ice to check, but it appears you do, at least on the strikemaster one.

[Angler Don]

Yup, asked Santa for the Marcum lx-i. I like it ! Pick up a little squirt bottle, I got one at Target in the pharmacy area, just a little shot will do. 2500 watts, instantly tells the depth, then automatically switches to a fish finder as such. Every 7 seconds, it pulses again, looking for anything swimming around. Does not tell temp. A nice time saver, you will drill fewer holes trying to find your spot to fish. I searched and read previous responses to this very question. The only negative I heard about the Strikemaster was the side located readout, have to crouch a little to read it. Otherwise, it should serve you well.

Don

[P.DONA]

I have the Strikemaster handheld, blue one.. I like it because You can dump a pail of water on the ice, slide it along and get depth readings.. TIP: try to keep it warm, like inside of your coat. It will give false readings in temps below freezing.

It does have the fish finder feature, I like it to find the depth breaks, the best.

I've never tried seeing just how accurate it is, though. I got it at the end of last year. I"ll be checking that this year, though

Good luck with it. I also take the battery out of it when not in use for a long period of time..

[CNY Tim]

I got a MarCum LXi Performance Pack with battery and holster and used it for the first time yesterday and I am very impressed with it's operation. What was nice is a light rain was falling and there was alot of water on the black ice so it was very easy to quickly check depth's and fish. It made locating small schools of perch with the audible alarm a breeze. The large digital read out was right there in the top for easy viewing and the audible fish alarm with flash depth displayed at what level the fish were at which makes for an awesome feature when hunting perch. It was a whole lot effortless than pulling my LX-3 out and using that to check depth. Handy little unit with a 12 deg. transducer. Extremely light and efficient and the holster pack is a great holder. Sweet... Wished I had it the day before looking for a main lake channel for crappies. Pretty cool piece of electronics it is.

[cliffy]

Just a quick note regarding the LX-I: I bought one last year and had one bad experience…. but it was my fault. Make sure you don’t get moisture inside of it. I left mine lying in the snow and some how moisture got inside and ruined the read-out. I sent it back to the company and they fixed it at no cost. Great Customer service. I assumed the moisture got inside the battery compartment…so this year I placed a patch of duct tape across the battery compartment opening just in case…and have had no problems so far.

[McGurk]

So, I'm assuming that you have to go directly to the surface of the ice and squirt a little water. This obviously hasn't been a problem yet this year (rain after Christmas???) but I was wondering what happens when there is 12+ in. of snow or on broken or cloudy ice. Same deal? Do you have to carry a little shovel around too? I would be using an lx3 and wondering if there are any hints for any/all of the units.

Thanks, McGurk

[buzbunni]

I just kick the snow away with my boot; if it's too deep for that, then I use my big dipper(or a small shovel) to remove the snow.

I just carry large bicycle water bottle around that I fill up with hot water before I head out for the afternoon. When that runs out(or freezes) I have a propane torch to melt the ice.

I have found the LX-i extremely convenient, to say the least. You can use your big unit as well, but the small hand helds are very handy...I think.

[Valv]

I dip tip of mine into minnow bucket, and reds through ice with no problem.

A bottle would be handier.