Choosing Flasher or Reg Sonar?
 

Come across this and thought it might help some choose.

https://www.humminbird.com/blog/arti...d-sonar-combo?

This is humminbird products, but would apply to Lowrance and others as well.

Hope it helps!

Once you go graph, you'll never go back......having said that, the Helix series incorporate a flasher mode along with the graph, so we (my cousin owns one and fishes with us most of the time) tend to split the screen...

Here is a link from an article that came in my email today from Humminbird on this topic.

https://www.humminbird.com/blog/arti...OTAwMjY1OTc4S0

I agree, I favor the graph as well.

Been saying the same thing for years now, mechanical flashers work better as flashers but the price difference and extra capability of sonar units (use on a boat, graph view if you prefer old data vs real time, maps/gps etc) make them the preferred unit by many. Sonar units are closing the gap but I think the helix etc are still step behind(Marcum LX-7 is great but pay an arm and leg for it considering no gps/maps).

Once you have the knowledge/experience the historical graph shows you little useful information, real time data is key when ice fishing imo.

So I have a question about my Humminbird 778c , it has the flasher screen.
I don’t use it because I don’t know how to read it very well.
I have the quad Transducer on it for side images with a suction cup on my boat.
Would a proper ice transducer be better for ice fishing?
Apparently the flasher mode gives a quicker response to the fish below
I have the ability to speed up the chart mode.

I prefer the chart screen because it shows the fish shape and alarm

You should have or be able to turn on real time sonar for the chart view. This creates a bar at the right hand side showing the current sonar data. This chart will show lines, lines that may stay the same or move up and down. Whether it is a fish, weed or bottom it will show up as a line of varying thickness on this graph. The rest of the chart view is just a graph of that real time sonar over a time period, the speed you set the chart at just determines how fast that data progresses across the screen.

Flasher view is the same as real time sonar but instead of looking at a vertical bar it is curved into a circular shape(due to the way a mechanical flasher operates, digital units use same circular view to mimic a mechanical flasher).

Reading a flasher is easy, top is the top of water column and as you rotate clockwise you are approaching the bottom. The bottom will show up as a thicker usually red line. Any marks up in the water column are sonar returns from fish, weeds, minnows etc. The thicker and darker colour a return is the bigger it is.

The fish shape/alarm are just interpretations of sonar data. They are reprogrammed functions that look at a return and decide if it might be a fish. These interpretations are often wrong as you have probably noticed when boating over a tree or weeds etc. You are better off turning these interpretations off and learning how to interpret sonar data yourself.

All sonar does is shoot out sound that travels in a cone shape, some of the sound gets reflected back off of a surface (bottom, fish etc), they transducer measures the time it takes for that sound to be reflected back and determines how far away the object is then plots that as depth on a graph. If you turn fish symbols off you will find that fish usually show up as an arch. That is because when the fish enters the cone angle they are further from the transducer then when they enter the center portion of the cone so the data shows the fish being further away(deeper on graph), closer (shallower on graph), then further away(deeper) again as it leaves the cone.

As for transducers the main difference between most ice transducers and summer transducers is the cone angle. Ice transducers use narrower beams which only show you what is directly below you. Summer fish finders use wider beams because you are often more worried about trying to find structure(weeds, drop offs, trees) or fish whereas when ice fishing you are more interested in tracking the fish directly under you that are interested in your lure. The wider the beam the bigger the area you see but that isn't always a good due to the false readings you may pick up. For example if you set up on a slope the fish finder the bottom shown on screen is going to be the top side of slope while there may be fish hugging the bottom of the slope. With experience you can actually see fish swimming within the bottom return in certain situations(if the bottom looks thick and softer return it could be because you are set up on a slope then when a fish swims in it gives a harder return).

I'll take real time/flasher view any day over graph view. I'm more interested at what is going on at the exact moment a fish is chasing my lure then being able to see that one swam by a couple minutes ago when I wasn't paying attention. Mixture of both is nice(either real time window or flasher view plus historical graph) but on many units if you display both you are stuck looking at a very small real time/flasher view.

Thanks Ravyak for the in-depth explanation. I’ll check it out , hopefully soon.

I tend to agree, have both types of units and so far can't say that having that tiny bit of history on the graph has amounted to any more fish on the ice.

I think the only real game changer for ice fishing that has come along (Although admittedly I have zero experience with) would be something like Garmins Panoptics. Chasing schools of perch over deepwater flats for example. I think you could eliminate a lot of dead zone without drilling the pile of hoes it can take to find them at times. I just wish those units weren't so expensive.

Yeah panoptix style technology is definitely king for ice fishing although still pretty unwieldy and expensive.

$2600 right now but I bet that price comes way down as others develop an ice fishing bundle.

*the technology for this is already available in both Humminbird and Lowrance products but not specifically as/for ice fishing - the "arm" and "stand" are what makes this "plug and play" right out of the box with Garmin.

Yeah give it a few years and price will come down and will be much more mainstream.

Humminbird doesn't have panoptix like technology unless I missed it?

Is Garmin the only ones with it for ice fishing at the moment?