Quote:
Originally Posted by NSR Fisher
How about skip the dedicated flasher and get a Lowrance or Humminbird Ice unit? 2D sonar gives you so much more information and makes it easier to distinguish structure & fish in weeds.
For the cost of a M5 you could get a heck of a Humminbird unit that you can use indoors / outdoors as well.
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I have to disagree with you.
2d sonar does not give you more information. A flasher uses the exact same technology and shows you the same thing just in a different format that is more applicable to stationary vertical fishing. Regular sonar view is useful in a boat because you are covering ground and you want to see where the depth changes, where weeds start etc and the only way to easily be able to do that is by viewing a graph that shows history. When sitting in a single spot a weed or rock just looks like false bottom.
Regular sonar units only have 2 advantages imo. One is that showing history can tell you how interested a fish is in your lure. For example you can see if it chased you up a ways or if it spooked when you jigged etc. Using a dedicated flasher you have to remember what happened which to me is fairly easy so I don't worry about seeing history although there are some times it can help you figure out just what the fish want. The second and main advantage imo is if it has extra features such as GPS or panoptix.
Dedicated flashers on the other hand have a number of advantages. They give you a whole screen dedicated to showing real time data which makes it far easier to see when a fish is on screen(literally any mark that wasn't on your screen a moment ago is a fish or a bug etc) and makes it easier to also see when the fish is about to bite or when you should give your lure a twitch etc.
Flashers use narrower cone angles which are advantageous if fishing in deep water or near sharp drop offs or weeds etc. Flasher regular beams are around 20 degrees cone angle and narrow beams usually 8-10 degrees whereas regular fish finders narrow beams are usually 20 degrees.
The other advantage is interference rejection. Most flashers have better ways of dealing with interference and clutter on screen then regular fish finders. The narrower beam angles help pick up less interference as well if there are other people fishing nearby.
I think most people that prefer regular sonar over a flasher do so just because they don't know how to use a flashers to its full advantage. They like the sonar view because that is what they are used to seeing in a boat and they already know how to interpret it. If you learn how to use a flasher well it is more powerful though.