vintage flashers

[himjunkie13]

are vintage flashers worth purchasing? They're cheaper and seem to work well enough. All I need is to see the bottom depth and whether or not there are fish under my hole. I dont need anything fancy so I'm just wondering.

[knoppers]

most of the older flashers don't have the power needed for ice fishing, such as seeing your jig or fish. they may give you bottom depth, if its not very deep. we tryed a old eagle flasher out laker fishing in about 80 feet of water, and could not even pick up the bottom. my LX-3 was unreal in the same spot, it picked everything up very sharp.

[himjunkie13]

thanks

[CrappieJohn]

Lots of the older models of flashers were simply not designed for the rigors found in ice fishing. Some get stiff in the cold and run slow. Batteries are chewed up quickly as the temps drop too.

I have an older Pro 60 Bird that I use for following the bottom while running in the boat. The only use it gets is when I want to stay in touch with what is under me and locating fish is not an issue. I used this a couple times for ice fishing as a back up, but the drain on the battery was huge....like I got about three hours use out of a full charge on a .7 amp battery that will run a Clearwater lcr for three days.

Whle some of these might work for you, technology has certainly leveled the antiquity axe on many.

[IndyEFI500]

I picked up an old FL6 cheap. It is the first flasher I have ever owned. I can see bottom and I could see my bait. Didn't see any fish but we also didn't catch any so I can't say if it was accurate or not. I also picked up an old green box for dirt cheap but haven't tried it yet. One thing I know about the FL6 is that it sure is noisy. We were in a 70 degree permanent house with a radio going and 5 guys and you could still hear the thing over all that. That reason alone is why I am thinking of clearing out my old graphs and flashers and putting it toward somehting new.

[Busdrivers33]

I got a marcum lx-1 for christmas this year. I know it's the older model, but just wondering if anyone has one or if anyone knows if it will be a good system for me.

[CrappieJohn]

lx 1's are very seviceable units. While many refinements have been made since the inception of the marcum line of ice machines, that lx 1 is still a dandy.

[The Chemist]

The first time I saw a flasher used for fishing was about 10yrs ago. My uncle and I went out w/ his green box and used it to shoot through the ice to find the fish and then we set to the depth they were at. Then I decided to use my Silent sixty-one on a local lake fishing in 20-30ft of water. I could adjust the unit to pick up a tear drop down to 5ft from the bottom and was catching fish left and right. I then picked up a vex and now have a second so I put the sixty one on my boat. They are possible to use just not as sensitive. Thing is you need to believe what you are seeing. On one occasion I found marks coming in about 5ft below the ice, for the heck of it I tried and ended up hitting a school of large crappies. If you have the money get a vex or marcum otherwise get a flasher until you can afford a better one.

[Borch]

I've used the old lowrance greenbox, hummingbird super sixty, eagle silent sixty for icefishing over the years. They all worked for seeing bottom and fish suspended. When fishing in relativiely shallow water(less than 30 ft) I could see my jig as well.

So they will work. But todays units are far superior units. It's not even close.

[himjunkie13]

thanks, im looking to get a green box off hsolist because i cant afford anything else! so hopefully it'll work for me.

[IndyEFI500]

"himjunkie13"

Shoot me an email and I can get more elaborate on my horror stories or not. indyefi500 at comcast dot net

[The Chemist]

Be careful, make sure that they say that the unit is working properly. I have seen where some of these units have the indicator not working.

[hawkeye43]

I have a Ray Jefferson fish flasher 6006 and a green box I bought new in 1976. I used the green box to shoot the bottoms on mile lacs. we dump water on the ice and the tranducer was taped to a broom handle. Didn't even get out of the truck unless there was snow on the ice. Now with the fl-18's and the marcoms we think its great. Where will we be in another 30 years??