Just enough Vexilar (or other)

So I have a Helix 7 gn2, which I love and use for both hard and soft water fishing. I hard water fish about once a week. About 60% of the time I go with someone else, which is most often my wife. So she will be the primary user.

My wife likes using the flasher portion (sonar not so much) of the Helix 7 so I’m thinking getting a flasher unit for her/guests to use would be a nice add.

We fish mostly panfish (from deep basins to shallow) with some walleye outings thrown in. She isn’t super techie (as in interest not capable) so it doesn’t have to be the new/best thing ever, just reliable and accurate.

I’m not opposed to used or refurbished, assuming the source is reliable.

What thoughts/recommendations do you have?

vexilar flx-12

I keep a Marcum Showdown around for others to use or a back up to my Helix. It’s a great digital unit. Simple as it can get. Shows the depth, the bottom and your bait and if a fish moves in. All in grey scale and very easy on batteries. The easiest sonar to use for newbies or people who just want the very basic.

My suggestion would be a FL18. It won’t hurt your wallet too much, but still offers the zoom function. Another bonus is the interference rejection in case you run into issues with your Helix.
FLX 12 is a great unit, but the zoom is still a nice bonus for those fish right to the bottom. I still can see fish on my 22 year old FL8, but they really show up on my FL20.

The anti-interference is probably worth it alone. 50% of the time fishing open air we are pretty close and do a few house trips a year.

If your boat could use an additional graph, look at another helix g2, can find good deals and just use flasher mode. Nothing wrong with a mechanical flasher if that is what you want. Vexilar, Marcum, humminbird ice 35 or 45.

While another helix on the boat would be nice, the h7 g2 appears to retail for 600ish while the vexilar fl-80 appears to be about 400. That gap might be a little hard to justify.

Vexilar FL-8. That’s all you need.

kidfish wrote:

My suggestion would be a FL18. It won’t hurt your wallet too much, but still offers the zoom function. Another bonus is the interference rejection in case you run into issues with your Helix.

Yep, off the used market. Main reason I upgraded from my FL-8 was bottom zoom for walleye outings.

Note – I haven’t had my Vex units next to the Helix G2’s. Not sure how well they do or don’t play well together.

I regularly fish with a guy who runs a Helix G2 and I have a FL-8SE. They play fine together

Well rehashed options with the wifey and we’re going to wait until next season (or end of) to do something new. Thanks all for the inputs and appreciate all the thoughts.

Marcum LX-6

Navigation is a breeze, find a lightly used one