Let's talk flashers

[slabbacks]

Guys I know I'm new to the forum but it was the need to find out more about a flasher that took me here and several other forums in the past few months.

After narrowing the search down to 2 brands, the M and V I then studied up on them.

For the money and what you get, I went with the LX-5. I was not interested in spending top $ just to have to go back and buy more stuff to do what I needed. Not because I like a Chevy or a Ford but what do I get for the money and does it work.

Now this is from a first time flasher user. The LX-5 came and was ready to hit the water as soon as I pulled it out of the box, just plug the hot wire up. (I did top off the charge just in case even though it did say 100%) After reading the manual I went out the next evening, Did what it said to do and soon found what it said to be fish in 12 fow between 4-8ft.

The lines I saw on the bottom and up 2-3ft was later found to be brush and they showed up as discribed by other users. Plus these never move or vary.

I found that the power output never had to be brought above about 2.5 in order for me to see my jig from just below the transducer to the bottom. I went up and then turned it down until it went away..I then came up slowly until I had a steady yellow line that not only shows my jig but also the swival 6-7'' up. 2 seperate lines.

The controls are easy to master and once set are good to go for that area.
After finding the fish I was able to drop my jig tipped with a minnow and start pulling in crappie..I saw these fish move up and that told me when to get ready for the take. If the fish moved down I saw this and was able to adjust the depth of my jig.

Twice while out fishing this night the lines went away, all but the ones from the brush. I picked up and moved down several slips checking each one until I found the fish again and once again was catching them.

ZOOM: I started by pushing the zm button and adjusted it to read just off the bottom and up 5 ft. If I saw fish come in above that, it was simple to move the zm up some to key onto those fish.

Charge: I like the way you never have to remove the battery and the guage tells what charge you have. If you leave it on charge it will not hurt due to going into a trickle charge mode.

Simple to use: I've never used one but in the first night I was able to pull in fish and know what the machine was telling me.

I've waited to post anything on this unit until I fished several times with it and can say that I'm glad I went with the LX-5. I went out to the same spot the weekend before getting the LX-5 and only took 3 fish..due to this was THE spot I never moved around much and I got tangled in the brush a few times.

Well THE spot was a few more slips down and a short time later a few more down from there. I would not have known this without the unit, plus it is in real time...makes being out on the water fun again. With the unit the next weekend I took 21, the night after that was 16 keeper crappie and a ton of gills on minnow heads (no lost rigs due to the brush..I just stayed up off them)

Is this the best? It's the best for me and what I was looking for. I hope this helps those that have to do the research like I did without putting your hands on one. If you do get a Marcum LX-5 you will not be sorry.

Thanks to all of you that have posted about all the flashers..it really helped out alot.

Just my 2 cents.

[kb2112]

I also have the LX5, and like it allot. I'm still learning how to use it but all that just practice. When I'm on fish it just works. I have trouble finding the fish.

[slabseeker]

Crappiekeith,

Do you find that when you drill your hole the fish may spook? Can you check for fish in that very hole as soon as you drill it?

[CTom]

Do you find that when you drill your hole the fish may spook? Can you check for fish in that very hole as soon as you drill it?

Water depth has a lot to do with spooking fish during the drilling, snow cover on the ice will have a bearing too as it cuts down on shadows and helps to muffle the cutting.

If the water under the ice is less than 4 feet, cutting the holes might spook the fish a bit, but if you stay quiet after drilling and cleaning they'll most likely settle right down. Try drilling your holes you want to fish from all at one time over shallow water, clean them, and then walk off 20 yards and drill some random holes, 2 or three, and leave them. Go back a fish the clean holes. Over deeper water, fish are not likely to spook a whole lot.

On new ice less than a foot thick without snow cover, fish can see shadows and that is more likely, along with things being dropped hard on the ice, to spook shallow fish. Snow helps a lot, even an inch.

Something to think about with winter fish is that their metabolisms are slowed down quite a bit. They are not geared physically to zip away from an area and flee thirty feet. When fish under the ice spook, they may only move off by 4 or 5 feet. They might not move at all, just not be willing to hit right away. When I drill for panfish, I drill several holes so I can freely move without any more disturbance to the area. As I clean the holes I check them with the locator. I note the holes that had fish and return to them when I settle into fishing instead of all the prep stuff. If the fish in those holes seem tenative, I move away from those holes and fish those that are peripheral, on the out side end or limit of the hole range for a while and then return to those that showed fish.

Another thing to think about is that everyone seems to have their own quirk about hole patterns. To this I say everyone is right and everyone is wrong. Do your own thing in this department and don't worry about what others prefer. If I am fishing panfish, I generally run two lines of holes about 50 feet each with the holes on one line being spaced about 5 feet apart long it's length and the holes in the second line five feet away running parallel to the first line but having the holes staggered so they fall between those of the first line. My hole pattern will look something like this:

. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .

If the shoreline offers a severe drop-off, I might run this pattern parallel to to the shore right smack atop the deepest water at mid-winter. At early and late ice I tend to run this pattern running from shallow to deep with the deep end covering the deepest water during cold front periods OR the shallow end starting at around five feet of depth and having the deep end only running as far into deep water as the pattern allows during periods of stability.

Another hole pattern I use is similar, but employs twice as many holes and makes a cross...think of a "t" crossed in the middle and using the two lines of holes in both directions. This is a pattern I use if the bottom contour offers a multi level, or stairstep, drop from shore and a continued deep end of the same depth. This pattern allows me to fish a multitude of holes in each direction and will tell me if fish have a preferred depth or are scattered along the deepest water.

Regardless of your hole pattern or water depth, be certain to fish the entire water column. While a flasher might be lit up with fish hugging the bottom, during ice periods those are most probably going to be the negative and neutral fish. I won't waste time messing with those and instead spend my time jigging the holes where I get random marks that stay in the screen for ten or 15 seconds and then disappear that are five feet or more off the bottom clear up to right under the ice....those are feeders. These are the ones you want. I fish these targets with larger, more aggressive baits that the bottom dwellers wouldn't even look at. I sat in my portable warming up one blustery cold day and noted some marks on the flasher that seemed almost like they were "hole echo" except they came and went. Curiousity got me and I knelt down over the three holes I had in there and what should I see but crappies...all over the place right under the iice. With the transducer being tucked just up from the bottom edge of the ice in the hole, the cone angle was super small and only if one of these fish got touched by the signal did I see it mark. I took a real short rod and dropped my jigging spoon down and commenced to sight fish these birds for the next hour. These fish were hard hitting....feeder as I call them and the hits were not in the least fussy. They'd swim right up and pound it. I was fishing over 30 feet of water that day during a real radical cold snap. Every thing the books say about cold fronts, ice fishing and where they will be found got thrown right out the window that day....you never know where they'll be or how they'll act, so you need to stay flexible in both your thinking and your actions. DO NOT GET IN A RUT when you are ice fishing. I teach a lot of seminars and one of my pet sayings is that " an angler's biggest deterent to success is his own lack of creativity". If you apply that to every aspect of your ice fishing you'll do just fine.

Above all, and this should have stated this discussion, is the need for safety. No ice should ever be considered safe.
ALWAYS:

* Carry Ice Picks [on your person]
* Let people know where you are going to fish
* Fish with someone
* Stay off ice under 3 inches when on foot, 8 inches when on an atv or snowmobile and have at least 12" of clear ice for a car/truck
* Carry a cell phone in a water-tight ziplock and on your person
* Be prepared with a first aid kit and emergency items like a couple of warm blankets, a sleeping bag, candy/fruit/nuts, a lighter and a can of sterno - you may not need it but someone else's life could very well depend on it.

[rico]

Good read, although biased.

[CTom]

Biased? If you say so.

[rico]

Just looked at my previous post, I meant to say that I am biased!

[wilbur]

How do you compare the lx5 to a vexilar fl8. I am thinking about upgrading. Is the ZOOM that big of a feature? Never had it.

[CTom]

That isn't even a fair comparison. The LX5 will hand you things that an fl8 couldn't imagine in a dream. The split beam transducer is a marvel compared to the 8' standard ducer. The adjustable bottom lock anywhere in the water column is unreal. And yes it is that big of a deal. That LX5 will run for a couple days on a battery charge while the vex will be sore after about 8 hours. The LX5 has true color lamps while the vex blends colors....you will not have the fading issues in direct sun that the vex has. The power is unequalled in the Marcum unit and that will equate to target seperation like you cannot believe.

Marcum hit the market with that LX5 and dropped a bomb that was maybe 3 years ahead of its time technologically. Every other flasher maker has had to play catch-up since. The patenets on features found in the Marcum have tied up what the others can offer. Even todays high dollar vex cannot match the LX5. Yes, they can come close, but.....

[rico]

Would it be a safe guess that you have a Marcum CTom? lol Vexilar is the industry standard. The Lowrance "Ice Machine" is a good model. Hummingbird has some good models out there. And yes I have used a Marcum as well. Kinda the Ford vs. Chevy thing maybe even comes closer to the Directv vs. Dish Network!!!!!!!!!!!!!!