Can a Lowrance Green Box be used on the ice?

[Grant]

please advise if this is possible, if so what would be the best way, etc.... thanks - can't afford a winter flasher to go along with the greenbox

[Flaco651]

Thats a good question. I have one like that also, but have never tried it ice fishing. I will let you know if I find out..

[Big Bobber]

I have a green box and had it modified to increase the power and it works well, not as good as the new units, but it has done the job. We use it when we have guests along with us. I use the green box and let them use the new technology, and I manage to catch as many fish with the green box.

[IcePro]

Yes you can use your Green Box. In fact many people used the Green Box before electronics for ice fishing became popular.

The only problem I had using my Green Box was trying to mount the transducer on a pole and keeping it level. This was before any of the transducer brackets were even invented.

Knowing what I know today I would be able to make it work. Air tuning and mounting a bubble level on top.

The Green Box will not give you signal strength in colors like today's electronics but you will be able to see bottom/fish/lure. The Green Box worked great shooting through the ice for checking the depth.

[Borch]

Grant I grew up using the greenbox on Big Lake, Mitchell and thompson lakes. It won't show your smaller panfish lures very well but you'll know what depth the fish are using. Not problem shooting through the ice for depth and school of fish with a little water on the ice either.

Good Luck.

[schweady]

Grant:

That's all I used on the ice until I got my Marcum. I rigged up an insulated plywood box with a hinged arm to extend the transducer into the water. Otherwise, those big ol' lantern batteries ran down pretty quickly in the cold. Fine for marking depths. Can shoot through the ice if clear enough. No match to the newer units for locating the bait, however, so used the big weight to set depths. Actually, I should unload mine, but can't seem to part with it for nostalgic reasons. It's a special edition of some sort from July 1981: has a gold band around it.

[BucketButt]

Like many others,I used mine on the ice before I could afford an Ice Machine. Now it just collects dust. It was used in the boat also, as it had auxillary wires for hooking to the start battery and a suction cup bracket. I had a guy at my work make an arm for it that hooked to a spring welding clamp and it worked pretty good. the box gets cold sitting right on the ice though.

[Grant]

great! thanks for the advise, and ideas how to make it work well.

the suction cup tore on my transducer, so I already have alittle arm/clamp getup that I've been using. I shouldn't have a problem finding something to clamp it to. also, I've been meaning to figure out how to wire it up to run from a marine 12v battery, can you fellas point me in the right directon on how to best accomplish that? Lantern batteries get a little spendy after a while it seems!

thanks again, wish me luck- will likely be going out on lakes in the immediate area of Big Lake. Just getting back into fishing this year after many years away from the sport, any wisdom or advise you are able to share is greatly appreciated!

[beer batter]

One thing to note is if you fish around other people that run newer flasher units is that these older boxes will become relatively useless due to interference.

The newer ones run with a much more powerful sonar beam that will interfere with the old ones. Mine ends up with a counter-clockwise pattern of junk the whole time.

[Cliff Wagenbach]

I have to agree that the interference from other close by units will make the Green Box usless!

I also have a Green Box that I use once in a while.

I converted it to a standard 12 volt gelcell battery by clipping off the two wires that run out of the battery circuit board to the sonar and then soldering a red and a green extension wire to these two wires. I then put two female clips on the other end of the extension wires to hook it up to the gel cell terminals.

The gel cell lasted much longer then the two 6 volt lantern batteries.

The gel cell will have to be carried seperately though, as it will not fit in the Green Box battery compartment.

My advise would be to bite the bullet and get either a MarCum or a Vexilar unit! Even the cheapist unit of either brands will be 100 times better then the Green Box.

Cliff