Tips on Walleye Fishing w/out a Zoom Capable Flasher

[Fish Fry Guy]

I have a Vexilar FL-8, due to the unit not having a zoom feature, I have had little luck &/or exerience identifying if walleye's are there.

I've heard that the bottom line will "flicker" if a walleye is there, but I guess I haven't ever experienced this. The only walleye's I've caught through the ice have been fish off the bottom 2 ft or so that show on my screen. Or, I simply got lucky fishing the bottom when the flasher show's nothing in the water column but a hard bottom.

For all of you out there who don't have a zoom feature on your flasher's, how do you target or even identify walleye's that are hugging the bottom?

[Cliff Wagenbach]

I used the FL-8 for years before I got a Marcum.

As you stated, a fish on the bottom will show up as a yellow flicker and will then turn orange/red as it gets closer and raises off of the bottom. You will get the same readings from a flasher with bottom zoon also, except the zoom makes it much easier to see the fish because the readings are magnified.

The number one thing you have to do with the FL-8 is to be sure that you have the gain turned up high enough.The amount of gain will depend upon the lure size and shape!

Here is what I do:

Drop your jig to the bottom, slowly lift it up to around 6" off of the bottom, You should be able to see you jig now, if not, slowly turn up the gain until you get a (good) reading on your jig. If you can see the jig well you will be able to see any fish that gets more then 3" off of the bottom easily.

To much gain will start to give false readings so you will have to experiment a little.

A slope will also make it harder to see fish right on the bottom compared to a flat bottom. This affects all flashers to some degree. A 9 degree cone transducer helps here!

The more you watch the screen , the more easily you will be able to tell when a fish is on the bottom watching your lure.

Good Fishing!

Cliff

[federline]

In all seriousness, it isn't zoom that is needed here, it is better target separation and display resolution. You are asking for better resolution than an FL-8 will give. A better sonar combined with finer display resolution will do this, with or without zoom. Zoom feature without finer target separation and resolution would just be a bigger fuzzy picture.

[looneyducer]

Quote:

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I've heard that the bottom line will "flicker" if a walleye is there, but I guess I haven't ever experienced this.

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I spent the first year looking for "flickers" on my 18 as well. This is not a flasher problem, or even a zoom problem -- it's a problem with linguistics. "Flicker" is not the right term. Sometimes the bottom flutters slightly, sure, and that's either fish or some jack*** driving too fast, but more often you'll see color alterations (orange in the red) or occasional lines inside the bottom, and sometimes you'll get a green or yellow line hugged to the bottom that looks like it might be baitfish that is actually a fish not neccessarily on the bottom but equadistant to the transducer as the bottom (this, by the way, seems to often be a hard fish to trigger -- try an extremely long pause or very slight flutter). "Flickering" is a word better used for what happens when you're experiencing feedback, which is a sure sign of fishermen, not fish.

So it's really a matter of deducing what the transducer is telling you -- 'ducing the 'ducer, so to speak -- though target separation, cone angle, gain, bottom hardness and slope -- all these things certainly do play an important part in that.

[Jim Almquist]

Everything that Cliff said should get you on the right track and the only thing that I would add is to make sure your transducer is at the bottom of the ice. I have a Hundex FL8 that was made before Vexilar bought them and caught lots of fish and I will still use in a pinch(Like when I sent my LX3 in for the upgrade)If you can make out your lure the fish should be easy