Sonar Question

[Pete Collin]

So I haven't ice fished since i was in college over 20 years ago.  last weekend I went XC skiing on a nearby finger lake and had a great time chatting up all the fishermen on the ice.  Learned enough to give it a try myself.  Being a do-it -yourselfer, I ground a point into a metal bar in my garage to  make a spud.  Cut down an old pole for a jigging stick.  I had an old graph that I have used in my canoe.  Rigged a board to mount the screen, transducer and lantern batteries in one module.  When i tried it out, the graph kept saying the transducer wasn't attached.  After much fiddling with cold hands, I got it to recognize the transducer, but it couldn't take any reading.  Now, this graph had worked fine for me last time i used it.  And it has been inside ever since.  Does extreme cold cause transducers to fail?  Is that why ice fishing flashers are so expensive?  I priced them, and can't see spending $400 for something to go play with panfish for a month out of every year.  If I looked around for a used boat graph, what are the odds it will work for me?

 

Pete Collin

 

www.pcforestry.com

[Sk8man]

Often when a transducer goes bad it may show bottom but not much else or if really gone won't show anything. They can be especially very sensitive to being banged around or dropped etc. and then go bad. The ice fishing flashers are designed with cold weather in mind especially in terms of extended power usage and things like that but I believe the transducers on many are the standard transducers but there are also some like the dual beam and tri beam that are made specifically for units used in ice fishing. You may also have a broken wire inside the transducer cord, corrosion on the connector or in the connector part on the unit itself.

 

You would be better off if you purchased a used unit designed specifically for ice fishing (e.g. Vexilar, Marcum, Lowrance etc.) with a matched up transducer. If going with a "graph" type they will be mainly the newer technology and pretty pricey. The flasher units are the "old standbys" and are a piece of equipment I now consider essential for doing it right. I like to make my own stuff and have even used Heath Kit graphs and flashers in the past (fortunately put together by my electronics wizard dad) but a good flasher is worth its weight in gold for ice fishing in experienced hands. I've seen used units on LOU that were fairly priced.

 

You can cobble together all of the other equipment and find inexpensive hand augers, rod/reels, shelters etc. and make your own tip ups and tip downs but if you are serious about getting into ice fishing do yourself a favor and get a good flasher. Good luck luck in whatever you decide to do Pete.

 

P.S. I have fished for many years both ways with and without a flasher and it is like night and day. Many times you would never know fish were underneath you or whether they were interested in your jig or bait as they sometimes just look or mouth the bait without moving the line or rod tip etc. With the flasher you see them coming nearby , getting closer, at the bait and can even tell by their behavior their level of interest, and whether you are jigging correctly or the jig itself is working properly, the bait has fallen off the jig (or if it is spinning and turning them off) and some idea of the size of the fish.

Edited January 28, 2015 by Sk8man

[Pete Collin]

Les, I brought the graph indoors. Once warmed up, the transducer works fine and you can hear it happily clicking away. Some graphs just can't handle cold, it seems.

[Sk8man]

Good Pete but you really won't know for sure if it is totally OK until you try it out in the water where there are fish and structure because as I mentioned they can be "partially" bad and not mark softer objects than the bottom. I hope it is OK and you can get her going for the ice stuff...it's a lot of fun out there.