Flasher/Sonar or Underwater Viewing Camera?

First off thanks to all who have already contributed to my inquiries about ice electronics. You guys must be enemies to wives everywhere for assisting their husbands in spending money!

Anyway, for those that didn’t read my previous post, I’m looking at getting electronics of my own for ice fishing (I’ve fished with others’ before) and I’m looking for advice on which to get.

The vast majority of people I talk to and read on here seem to talk about having flashers/sonars. I see a little bit here and there about underwater viewing cameras like the Aqua-Vu’s. I like the idea of being able to see underwater cover and putting those locations in the memory bank for summer as well.

Just looking for suggestions and preferences between those two options. I’m impartial at this point, just looking for whatever will help me catch more fish.

The best of both worlds would be the LX-9 with both the sonar and the best underwater camera on the market.

Otherwise, sonar comes first and the camera later.

The sonar will see fish marks in all water. The camera only if the water where you’re fishing is clean enough.

If I only fished a spring fed lake where I could see at least 10 feet all year, my answer would be the other way around. Camera over sonar.

Hope that helped.

I agree with BK Flasher first Camera second, for those exact reasons.

Flasher first

FDR

Yup… LX9

You can always use a flasher. You can’t always get use out of a camera (IE Lake of the Woods Water Clarity) –

And Flashers will last longer! Remember, any flasher is better than nothing. It absolutely needs to be your first purchase.

Cameras are a nice tool but they will not help you catch fish as much as a flasher will. Think about it, you drill a hole in 15 feet of water, you put your transducer down and you instantly know whether or not fish are beneath you.

Otherwise you drop the camera down there and you cover a few vertical feet of the water column looking in one direction only. So you sit and spin the camera around for awhile. Then you drop it another few feet and continue spinning, repeat until you hit the bottom. This is not a quick process, especially if you are fishing sunfish/crappies which don’t always relate to the bottom.

Meanwhile, Johnny Flasher has already drilled another half dozen holes and found exactly where the fish are holding, 9 feet down in 18 feet of water. It would be another half hour before you even get there.

I’m also not convinced that cameras don’t spook fish, I’ve seen situations where they don’t seem to spook them, but I’ve also experienced the opposite.

The most frustrating thing about cameras is that fish don’t always stay at the same depth. The flasher will tell you that fish are coming in at ‘x’ depth, but oftentimes with sunnies I’ve seen them start to move in a few feet deeper/shallower as time goes on. The camera won’t tell you that.