open water fishfinder on ice?

[Guest]

i am wondering if it is ok to use an open water fish finder on the ice. my friend says you can, but i am still skeptical. any tips?

[jacheesehead]

I have an Eagle Magnum II that I use in my boat during the summer months, then simply remove it from the console and mount it on the portable battery container. I bought an extra transducer that I mounted on a piece of plastic pipe (about 30" long). I am able to stick the transducer/pipe through a hole in the ice and at least get a depth reading and idea of the makeup of the bottom. It works pretty well at showing the depth of suspended fish also. Not as good as having a dedicated ice type unit but it works for me.

[vikingtom]

U sure can. The old man I know has three differet locators and he made mounts 4 the transducers. Fish on sir.

[minnphatts]

I use my Garmin graph all winter long, and my buddy uses his Lowerance. It may not be as good as a Vexilar, but definately works just fine. The only problem I have is using it in temperatures below zero, it tends to freeze the screen a bit.

[Guest]

Untill this year(got an FL18) I used a Eagle Ultra through the ice.It has a "fastrack" mode that is real time display.It worked pretty good.You would see bars instead of arcs or your little fish symbol.You could also see your jig or bait as a steady small bar.The biggest problem withit was you had to have the tranducer set perfectly level for it to work properly.You also had to play with the gain constantly.

[Guest]

You can use any depth finder for ice fishing. But the key is to get the transducer to shoot STRAIGHT down so you can see what is happening near your bait.

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Kevin Neve's Devils Lake Guide Service
fishingminnesota.com/kevin-neve-guiding/
e-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 701-473-5411 or 701-351-4989
Minnewaukan ND

[Guest]

I have a Lowrance X-65 that I use for both summer and winter, It works well for ice fishing because it has a flasher mode, thats an actual flasher dial displayed on the screen, and it's sensitive enough to see even the small panfish jigs.

[Guest]

Yep, any locator will work...Although the LCD's may get a little slow in cold weather.

PCG

[Guest]

Yup, even my old Hummingbird 4-ID works great in 35' of water. I kick up the sensitivity (about 4 beeps worth) and screen scroll speed and put'er on Bottom Lock to see the bottom 15'. Set up like I've described will let me not only see my tear drop type ice jigs as Ospery mentioned but my split shot and swivel will show separately as well. Or, I'll leave it in the Normal Run mode with the Fish Alarm on while I'm checking difdferent holes for activity. In Normal Run mode I can't see my jig though.

[dickie]

Hi FISHBON...
Re your inquiry about using open water fish finders on the ice:
I have a Eagle Ultra and a Jimmy Houston Pro Flasher which I have rigged as portable units and which I use in the boat and on the ice as the need requires.
I have rigged the transducer brackets using 1/4" allthread rod,wing nuts,flat washers and two pieces of foam insulation that float the transducers level like you see on the vexilar units used for ice.
In the boat I leave the tranducers mountes on portable brackets that I clamp to the hull as needed.
Both of these units work well rigged this way and I can see my lures and fish while ice fishing. It takes some fine tuning on the signal but is easily accomplished.
Use your ingenuity and good fishin....
.

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