Let's talk flashers

[crappiekeith]

This thread is not about which is better but why they are sooooo helpful.
I find I can pump my gain to read throught the ice not to find fish ,but to read depth without cutting holes.
Dumping a little water aides in the ice ducer's ability to read through the ice.
Cut a hole and grab some water in a pop can or whatever then you can keep moving until you find the structure your looking for.

Setting the gain as low as possible is important.you always want your bait to show up green or yellow.
Then as it turns red you'll know a fish is on your bait.
Setting your gain low will also cut out inteference although there are several interference rejection modes in most flashers.

Make sure you ice ducer is directly in the center of your hole.If you do this you can keep your ice ducer higher eliminating the chance of your line wrapping around the ducer cord.
More times than not you'll need to wet a hand to wipe off the bottom of the ducer puck which will help reading smaller baits.
Never use anything that would scratch it.This is a sensitive part of your flasher unit.
Ice can sometimes create unwated signals so you may need to get the ducer deeper in the water ,especially when the ice gets thicker.
Drilling your hole straight down will also aide in reading the water column better.

Once I get to the general area I'm popping holes,zig zagging up and down the breaks or just making swiss cheese if I'm over a hole that the fish hold too.
I most often then come back to read the holes.Reading the hole just after you buzz the hole may show nothing as the auger spooked those fish away ,but they can move back if you give those fish a few minutes to recover.
I'll keep cutting holes until I mark fish.No sense in setting up & hunkering down over a dead hole.

Then after locating the pods of fish I'll set up.I'll fish that hole as long as I'm marking fish.
If too much time goes by without marking fish after I've been catching I'll go reread those other holes.
The fish can move and to have those other holes already to fish come in handy.
I can just pull my porty over and I'm back in business.

I use a flasher to see under water.True you do not see the actual fish ,but the sonar signals tell me what they are doing.
It shows me where in the water column they are at.
I can also tell their feeding mood by how fast or slow they move to my baits.
I can also tell by how high they seperate from the bottom.
If you fish the same area you'll notice that some days those fish will rise pretty high to hit your bait and on other days they will not move much.
That allows me to upsize or downsize to match their mood .
I can see if there is interest or no interest in how I'm approaching them.

It allows me to work those fish higher in the pack as they are the more aggresive feeders.
Then when they clear out I'll move again....finding new pods of fish to work.
There should be no reason not to be on fish unless you just can not find them.

[Buckeye Mike]

Nice read Keith.

[ready2fish]

wow great info, i been ice fishing since i was a young in and just finally picked up a flasher today. thanks for the great info

[Len]

Keith,
How close can you get to another flasher before interference is noticed or are the ice flashers designed to prevent this.

[crappiekid24]

All the flashers today are equiped with IR or Interference Rejection. From what I have noticed though is that my Marcum will cause some interference for a Vexilar due to the fact that Marcums run at a higher power. While I wont get the interference from the Vexilar after I push my IR button. Not trying to make it look like Marcum is better then Vexilar its just the Marcums run at a higher peak to peak power then Vexilars.

[crappiekeith]

You can get pretty close if you have a Marcum.
I used to run Vexilars ,but when there got to be too many guys in an area using flashers....no amount of interference rejection helped.

You all know I use very small hair jigs so I'd turn up my gain to read it.Bad deal cause it increased the errant signals.
Ever since I went to Marcum the clutter is gonzo.

A vex will be just fine if there's not many close to you with flashers.
They make a solid flasher.
I have a FL8SE on a propack with the brighter lights and 10 I.R. modes,battery charger.
It has 1.5 winters on it.It's for sale 250$
Very clean.

[hnd]

vx-1 or fl-8. i can get both at pretty much the same price, keith. which one do you like better and why or can i not go wrong with either.

[crappiekeith]

some may call me biased ,which I am due to product not sponsorship.
VX1 would be my choice.
Trust me.
If for no other reason....you'll have next to zero interference in a pack of flashers which is why I switched.

[tjsnipehunter]

Does the FL8 have bottom zoom? I think you have to go up to the FL18 to get that.
If it doesn't that alone should sway the choice. When I got my VX1 I thought the zoom would rarely get used but now I'm using it more often then not. It is a nice feature.

Tim

[crappiekeith]

No...the Vex FL-8 does not have zoom.

I love my zoomon the LX3tc.I can zoom anywhere in the water column.
FL18 and 20 only have the bottom 6 foot for the zoom.

When I'm working suspended fish in deeper water I like to put the zoom towards the top of the pack of fish.