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01-18-2017, 10:07 AM
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Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 45
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Flasher question
Heading out to Cold Lake on Friday and I finally picked up an Ice 45. When using a flasher if you see no action on it after dropping the transducer on the ice, do you drill a new hole right away or just sit and wait?
Also, if anyone has an ice report for this week that would be helpful too. I don't have a skidoo so I'm hoping I'm going to still be able to drive on the ice with the warmer weather.
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01-18-2017, 10:16 AM
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: Calgary
Posts: 7,506
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Regarding using the flasher, just sit and wait. Just because you don't pick something up right away doesn't make it necessary to go look for fish in a new hole.
I'm the type to set up and not move very often as I have a tent, but even when I fish out of the same hole, I mark fish most of the day.
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01-18-2017, 10:43 AM
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Edmonton
Posts: 2,781
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Give the fish some time to move into the area, hopefully attracted by your lure. If you don't see anything after a bit, good idea to move. The beauty of a flasher is that it's easier to pick up and move than a camera is.
My process is kind of like this. Pick the general area I want to try. Drill a hole, drop the camera down and check the bottom for type (sand, mud, dead weeds, live weeds, etc.) or any structure (weedlines, rocks, etc.). Once I know that I'm in the area I want to be in, I drill a bunch of holes and use the flasher as I move about the area. If I find a spot with a bunch of stuff on the flasher and I want to stay for a bit, I will drill a second hole and drop the camera down to see what is going on.
Might not work in every situation, such as really deep water or murky/poor vis.
SS
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01-18-2017, 10:59 AM
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: GRAND PRAIRIE
Posts: 5,720
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Make sure you fish the depth of the lake from top to bottom sometimes they're sitting right on the bottom like walleyes sometimes they'll Chase your lure all the way up
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01-18-2017, 02:33 PM
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Join Date: Sep 2013
Posts: 62
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i wouldn't be driving on….thats a questionable call (at best) the guys driving this week took a risk. An ATV is safe but anything other than the bay wasn't covered until after Dec. 20th. Theres no snow for a sled to run either
As for your flasher. The hummingbirds battery that they sell standard i have found to be weak and have had friends find the same issue specifically fishing in > 80 ft/w @ cold lake. This will make it hard for the transducer to pick up the blip that a fish would read out. Read your instructions and understand what your gain and the other features do. Otherwise it might be along day if your relying on the flasher soley. The reason i say this is that i bought a better battery and the problem seemed to clean right up.
just my 2 cents
Last edited by Mr. Twister; 01-18-2017 at 02:55 PM.
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01-18-2017, 03:41 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 45
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Twister
i wouldn't be driving on….thats a questionable call (at best) the guys driving this week took a risk. An ATV is safe but anything other than the bay wasn't covered until after Dec. 20th. Theres no snow for a sled to run either
As for your flasher. The hummingbirds battery that they sell standard i have found to be weak and have had friends find the same issue specifically fishing in > 80 ft/w @ cold lake. This will make it hard for the transducer to pick up the blip that a fish would read out. Read your instructions and understand what your gain and the other features do. Otherwise it might be along day if your relying on the flasher soley. The reason i say this is that i bought a better battery and the problem seemed to clean right up.
just my 2 cents
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Great tip on the battery! Thanks for letting me know. What type of battery did you end up getting?
Also, thanks to everyone else who has responded.
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01-18-2017, 09:21 PM
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: West Edmonton
Posts: 5,174
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How long to sit in a hole depends on the lake and the species.
At Cold Lake I would go to a spot that seems promising and drill a half dozen holes or so to try and cover a few different depths if possible. Fish each hole around 5 minutes, more if you are marking or catching fish. If you tried all of them and didn't mark anything then you could try them again briefly and if still nothing best to move to a different spot on the lake and try again.
Sitting in one spot waiting for fish to come in only works if you know you are in a good spot that the fish will eventually come to.
I definitely wouldn't move without fishing a hole first. It is rare to just mark a fish right away on a flasher, you need to attract them over or draw them up off the bottom with your lure.
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01-19-2017, 05:15 AM
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Banned
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 928
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You can also try setting your transducer to its widest cone and then use your ice scoop to swirl the water in the hole like you're stirring sugar into coffee. Drop in your transducer and it will cover a much bigger area showing you what's around you.
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01-19-2017, 09:07 AM
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: Stony Plain
Posts: 6,433
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TylerThomson
You can also try setting your transducer to its widest cone and then use your ice scoop to swirl the water in the hole like you're stirring sugar into coffee. Drop in your transducer and it will cover a much bigger area showing you what's around you.
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Lol this for real?
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01-19-2017, 09:09 AM
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Edmonton
Posts: 2,781
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike_W
Lol this for real?
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I guess if sonar sent out particles instead of waves it might work...
SS
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01-19-2017, 09:47 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Sherwood Park, Ab
Posts: 510
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ice was a solid 22" at least at the start of this weekend and closer to 24" by the time we left. In French bay. Drove on from the ski hill launch.
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01-19-2017, 09:48 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 387
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It does work. The water in the hole spins in a cone like fashion/vortex (like stirring your sugar in your coffee), your float will be out at the margin of the hole and the ducer will be in the middle pointing off at an angle, expanding the area you can see.
From Ontario Out of Doors Magazine:
"5. Transducer Stirring
Aaron Weibe is a young fish-head from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and has won a lot of money by catching big fish of all species under the ice.
When Weibe is hole-hopping, a technique that works great for crappie, he employs a method he’s named transducer stirring. “I drop the transducer in the hole and try to get it below the ice. Then, I swirl the transducer in a circle. This greatly increases the coverage of the sonar, so I can check a much wider area. It’s especially deadly for crappie, because they often suspend. You have to watch closely, because fish will only appear as a brief flicker. Usually, these fish are still close enough that they will come in for your bait if you drop it to their level. Without doing this, most anglers wouldn’t even fish the hole because they didn’t see any fish directly below them.”
The more you know!
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01-19-2017, 04:46 PM
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Banned
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 928
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SamSteele
I guess if sonar sent out particles instead of waves it might work...
SS
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If your transducer only worked when it was stationary it would be pretty useless on a boat.
Same goes with any wave based reciever like your fm stereo.
Are you under the impression that the waves coming back to your transducer are funneled with pin point accuracy directly into the center of your transducer after bouncing off the bottom of the lake?
Last edited by catnthehat; 01-19-2017 at 09:01 PM.
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01-19-2017, 04:58 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Edmonton
Posts: 2,781
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All you're doing is causing the transducer to be off level momentarily so yes, it will read a slightly wider area. Negligible in shallow water and in deeper water the depth that it records will not be accurate.
Make your ice hole mcswirly if you want. Doesn't matter to me.
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01-19-2017, 07:39 PM
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Banned
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 928
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It's not about accurate depth reading but finding fish in the general area. It reads a much larger area not a slightly larger area.
Last edited by catnthehat; 01-19-2017 at 09:05 PM.
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01-19-2017, 09:23 PM
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Banned
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 928
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Actually I got all night because I'm switching to night shift so here goes. Now first a disclaimer this isn't going to be exact math as figuring out multiple oblique cones isn't something I feel like doing so what we are going to do to get a rough enough idea of coverage is pretend the area covered by the transducer is a single come to keep things simple.
First we have to create a hypothetical with know variables.
Ice thickness 20 inches
Depth of water 15 feet
Hole size 10 inches
We will also assume that you get the water adjoining fast enough to force the transducer to the edge of the hole and that you keep the cable centered.
First we figure out what angle the transducer is swinging at. I'm doing this on my phone and don't feel like typing all the formulas but with the known variables the answer is 14 degrees.
Half of 14 is 7. Add that to the 20 degrees of the cone and we have 27 degrees. Multiply that by 2 for both sides of the hole and you have a cone that has 54 degree vertex.
Now the way you figure out your transducer coverage is
Tan (cone angle)*(depth of water)
So your coverage goes from roughly 5.5 feet to 20.5 feet.
Big difference.
The actual coverage area is actually bigger but the math for that is way more complex and I don't feel like doing it.
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01-20-2017, 06:43 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Edmonton
Posts: 6,470
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I drill a few holes and if nothing on the flasher in a couple mins, I move to another hole. Repeat as necessary.
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Kim
Gonna get me a 16" perch.
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