Quote:
This is the first year I’ve ever owned a flasher. I’ve always drilled holes, tried different things, and caught fish. So far this year I’ve had the flasher out three times and only caught two fish.
While I absolutely think a flasher overall puts more fish on the ice than not having one, and it’s not even close, the reality is we don’t NEED them. It’s just another tool to help us. You can still catch fish without one.
Just wait until you learn all the ropes with that flasher. It took me 4 or 5 trips before I learned how tell how the fish are reacting and what to do based on what the fish are telling me. Once you get it down, you will see your catch rates increase dramatically. Not just about seeing if fish are down there, its about seeing how they react to what you are doing.
I consistently out fished a buddy of mine 20-30:1 for a week straight last year, and he is a very good fisherman. I was using a flasher, he was not. Finally I asked him if he wanted to use my old unit, he said okay and again.. took 4 or 5 trips before he figured it out and now he holds right with me and sometimes out fishes me.
Just the other day I caught probably 40-50 crappies, 40 or 50 small gills, and kept my 25 crappies while pops caught 10 fish all day. Same bait, same area, relatively same depth, he couldn’t see how the fish were reacting to his lure and I could. He still caught fish, and still claims that flashers are not needed to catch fish… he’s absolutely right! They just help to catch MORE fish.
Hey flashers don’t and can’t make the fish bite all they do is show that there might be some there. 
