Humminbird for ice fishing

Recently purchased a Humminbird Helix 7 DI GPS combo for open water fishing. I also wanted to use it this season for ice fishing with the ice transducer BUT I contacted their support and they said that I’d only have a single beam transducer. SO HERES MY QUESTION: do I A. Buy the ice transducer for $90 B. Somehow rig up my open water transducer for the ice C. Sell it and get the Humminbird ice Helix 7 which has the dual beam transducer or D. Sell it and get an LX7???

I really like the unit but I’d use it much more for ice fishing vs open water.

Please help and thanks in advance.

Is E: a option? Leave it on the boat and buy the hellix ice or LX7.

I thought the ICE refers to the package. Aren’t the transducers the same on both? The xi920?

Would be curious on why the ICE would have dual beam and the other wouldn’t. Should just be as simple as a software thing.

Debating myself on how I want to work graphs for this ice season.

Well they do have the older ICE 35,45, and 55 but they recently came out with an Ice Helix 7 specifically for ice fishing. It has what they call “dualbeam PLUS ICE 83/200 transducer” not sure if it’s the same as the Xi920 or not. BUT I believe that I’m limited to one beam if I buy the Xi920 because my unit has down imaging. If it was just the sonar gps version than I could buy the Xi920 and have full functioning capability (although it sound like the Ice Helix 7 transducer is improved)

The ICE comes with XI920 transducer on website, which is single/dual. The package you can buy to convert a regular Helix 7 includes that transducer as well.

I would make sure the regular doesn’t have dual beam capability. Wouldn’t surprise me, my old 597 with DI was a bit of pain figuring out how to work but it did eventually and worked really well.

Not to get off message here but I have the Helix 5Si and was going to try for ice fishing this year can I use my buddies transducer from an Ice 45 or 55 will that work for my unit or do I need to get the XI920.

I have heard good and bad on these things but want to have the GPS and my lake maps on the ice for sure this season.

Look at getting a Lowrance elite series. Its great for both open water and they make 4 and 5 inch screens so really portable for ice fishing. The Lowrance elite 4 you can pick up for around $200 right now and you can buy it either in the ice fishing version or open water. I purchased the open water version and then bought a ice traducers with a packaged that came with a case and batter along with the the traducer for around $100.

imo the combo units (mostly Summer use a Winter ice fishing mode feature) will provide decent fish finding performance, but they can’t hang with specific ice-fishing models…

for around $100 on c-list you can get a older color GPS fish finder (Lowrance Elite-4 for example) that will give you great mapping performance…

Looking at getting into one of these units as well ( Helix 7 ICE) I was just curious if anyone knows if there is a way to turn off the GPS on this? I would like to be able to turn off the GPS once I get to my spot to save some battery life. Any input would be great.

Thanks

you can put the ice ducer on the Helix 7 DI. I have done that on an SI and it works great. The ice ducer doesn’t have 455 because that is the DI/SI frequency. DI and SI wouldn’t work either way since you are sitting still ice fishing.

The helix units are awesome for ice. Get used to using the 2D over the flasher mode and you will be happy. That’s my preferred method. The only difference in the ice pack is that it comes pre-rigged for ice fishing with the bag, battery, and ducer. I love them for ice fishing. I prefer it over my ICE55. The battery of the HELIX actually lasted longer than my ICE 55 as well. You can turn the brightness way down to extend it. They are so bright.

I beleive you are right about the dual beam though. I don’t think DI and SI have that. IMO, if you put the ice ducer on the unit you have you would be good to go. Plus, you would still have DI for the boat.

The 455 frequency on the DI units is used for both DI and 2D. The 455 is the narrow 16 degree 2D beam.

It’d be great if they made a dual beam ice transducer specific to the DI units, the standard ice ducer 83KHz beam is too wide and not practical for ice fishing IMO.

This was what the humminbird customer support team sent me when I asked if I’d lose any functions on my unit since it has down imaging.

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