This is cut and pasted from my longer report in the general forum… Thought it was appropriate to post it in the HB forum as well…
Here is a link to my full report
On this trip I was given the opportunity to borrow a friend’s Humminbird ICE-55 flasher unit, which was really nice considering one guy in our group didn’t own a flasher. He borrowed my aging Vexilar FL-8 and I got to use the brand spanking new ICE-55. NICE! Thanks again to my buddy for letting me take that with me!!
Without getting into the HB vs Vexilar vs Marcum debate, I’d like share how the HB functioned for me…. I’ve had the same FL-8 for over 10 years now. Its definitely a functional machine, but it lacks many of the upgrades on the newer units. The first thing that impressed me about the ICE-55 was the display. Very bright colors. – no eye strain at all. What was really cool about it was the option to change the display color and use different color “pallates”, similar to changing the color pallate on my HB-997 side imaging unit. It offers the traditional Vexilar and Marcum colors, as well as HB’s very own (unique) color pattern. You could change things up to suit your eyes with a push of a button. I very much liked the HB colors that used blue as the weakest return as it seemed to be a “cool”, easy to see color pattern.
The display face was basically a flat screen instead of the sunken display like my old FL-8. You could view it from many angles and still see it no problem. With my old unit, I had to view it straight-on to be able to see what the screen was telling me. It was a huge benefit when combined with the bright display colors.
I played around with the zoom function somewhat, but considering the water depths that we were fishing, the size of the fish, the size of the lures we were using and the great clarity and separation the 55 offered, I found that I didn’t really need the zoom. Without using the zoom, I could still detect 2-3 inches of separation between my lure and the bottom. Not bad at all!
When in zoom mode, you can adjust which part of the water column you want to zoom in on, which would be a nice feature… I can see the zoom being a huge advantage when using smaller baits, when fishing deeper water, and/or fishing for smaller-sized fish…
When everyone in our shack fires up all of their (Vexilar) units, generally every one of us gets interference like crazy (Think 4-6 guys fishing within a confined 6 x 12′ space…) What was really nice with the 55 is that I only counted a small handful of interference blips the whole trip. I had absolutely no need to adjust my gain or use the HB’s anti-noise function while the rest of my group was consistently hitting the IR buttons on their Vex’s. It was so nice, I didn’t even think about it the whole trip until we were done fishing… It reduced interference-induced stress levels by 100%
The dual beam selector function was awesome. At the depth we were fishing (22-28 feet), I sometimes would mark the jig on my dead stick rod in the next hole (when using the wide beam angle). If I didn’t want to see that mark on the screen, all I had to do was push the beam selector button and change to the narrow angle setting – a very nice feature to get rid of target clutter when necessary, or to toggle to wide angle and view the dead stick jig depth. Otherwise, the wide angle allowed me to see a little further to the side and really search for roaming walleyes…
The carrying case was very well built, easy to carry (very easy to grip the solid, sturdy handle through the top part of the case fabric) and very well padded to protect the unit. The padding is an awesome feature that is often overlooked, but I’m sure would help the longevity of the product the way these things often get tossed around on the ice.
After two day of constant use without charging the battery, I saw “voltage” flashing on the unit. Another nice feature that tells you to think about charging the battery. I never noticed any loss of brightness or performance while the indicator was blinking — it would be my guess that the unit still had plenty of power to function for many more hours. I didn’t run it out of juice purposely to find out, however. I charged it fully overnight and it was set to go the next morning.
Overall, the HB ICE-55 is an outstanding unit!!!
Mike
