Ice Fishing Flasher?

My buddy and I have the FL-8 and we use the interference rejection and that works great between the two. When his dad comes fishing with us, he has the VX-1 and it makes our screens go crazy…. We don’t invite him fishing with us any more.

I’ve never experienced interference that wasn’t easy corrected with a few pushes of the IR. I fish with lots of guys that run Vexilars and it’s never been where the screens are unreadable.

That isn’t to say that in certain situations it doesn’t happen, just saying I have yet to see that myself.

I fish next to my father in law with my Marcum he has and FL-18 and we never have had issues either.

I have a dilemma… I’m on my 2nd hummingbird ICE45 in a week…. first one the glass on the head unit was all scratched and had marks. The 2nd unit displays red, green and a yellowish green that almost matches the green. Instead of the yellowish orange it’s supposed to have…

My dilemma is do I try another bird out…or venture into a Marcum.

I like the bird because it has the dual beam & zoom plus I got $90 off the unit. Where if I switch to say the Marcum lx3 I will lose the $90 off and pay another $50 on top of it.

I had an ICE 35 and loved it. Dual beam and zoom adjustable to anywhere on the face. The only reason I no longer have it is because I updated to the Marcum LX-6. I had no interference issues fishing next to Marcums or Vexilars.

That Marcum LX-6 looks amazing, but out of my budget….maybe in a couple years

I own a vx-1i and I am very happy with it! its supper easy to use! I highly suggest it.

my flasher progression = fl8 4 years, fl18 2 years, vx1, 2 years, lx5 3-4 years. the last 4 years a good fishing buddy has had the ice 35. so I have tremendous experience with the lowend flasher market so here is my 2 cents.

fl8 – it is a tank that will catch fish for years. that’s the only advantage it has over the other 2 flashers. durability. it requires an extra cable that you have to put on and off (cumbersome) in order to fish shallow water and not have your 12mm jig show up as a thick 1/4″ red mark. so its not as good as the other 2 in shallow water. in deeper water than 25-30′, it has no zoom so if you need to deal with bottom hugging fish or perhaps trying to separate out the gob of marks, you are at a disadvantage. mind you it will still catch lots of fish in both shallow and deep water situations but its just not as ideal.

ice 35 – the advantage this unit has over the other 2 is the dual beam. when you are fishing on a shelf or around big boulders, at times you get a dead zone where fish hide but you can’t see. narrowing that zoom helps tremendously. There was a time where we used my buddies bird to find fish because we had to use a smaller cone angle to find them. the issue I have with this flasher is that its not sharp enough for its enormous screen. I liken it to watching a small sized video clip on your computer and accidentally hitting the full screen button. you can still see whats going on its just not clear.

VX1p – the big advantage this unit has for me was its shallow water performance and the crispness of lines. its just seemed like its resolution was so much better than any of the other 2 units. in shallow water, you are capable of completely clearing the screen so having too much like the vexilar was completely negated. the thinness of the lines gives you so much more of an advantage. the other real benefit is the zoom. the ice35 does have a zoom but it just takes and already large image and just make it even larger which just pixelated it more for me. the vx1 zoom doesn’t just magnify the image, it actually increases your target separation as well. the only issue I have with the vx1 p is the base it comes with is super cheap feeling.

i saw a lx3 side by side with my fl18 and it was so night and day, my fl18 went bad and I jumped on a vx1. I’ve caught thousands of fish with vexilar but I can say for certain the vx1 outperformed both thos vexilar units.

I’ve owned every vexilar unit except the fl28 and stuck with the fl22. I rarely fish in water over 20’though. If you fish in deeper water I personally think the fl20 is their best over all in the lineup. I bought a marcum lx9 for my ‘up north’ deeper water trips. Only marcum I’ve owned, pretty sweet!

I had an ice45 that I loved but it started doing the same thing. I called hummingbird and they had me ship it to them in Alabama. The problem was somewhere in the gain adjustment knob, they fixed it, I sold it and upgraded to the ice55…had it for 3 years now and love it, the blue color pallete is great for separating marks from the bottom and using that in conjunction with the zoom features makes it a no Brainer for me.

If it was me, I would get a hold of an ear of hummingbirds customer service and get themy to address the issue and put u back on the ice, I’ve never had an issue with them and they stand behind there products….if that should fail an u wanna switch completely, I’ve always said heaven forbid that my flasher takes a crap but my next one would be that lx7 from marcum,

I know the dollars may shock the wallet but a couple buddies of mine have them and man is that the cats meow! They haven’t blown my doors off yet when fishing together so I haven’t switched but some days I catch myself lamenting bout owning one! Lol with that said, ice55 is my huckleberry for the foreseeable future….good luck

I had an fl-8. I upgraded to a hummingbird ice 45. Huge difference. The zoom is great and the detailed lines were a huge improvement. Haven’t owned marcum….yet. So I can’t comment

I’ve had no problems with my Humminbird. Not sure what complaints there are about the zoom. I would like the digital depth readout but it wasn’t worth $100 to me. Bigger screen than both Vex & Marcum-now Marcum has come out with bigger screens. My brother’s fl-18 has been problem free for 10 plus years. Never used or fished around a Marcum.