Marcum LX-5

I am really leaning towards purchasing one of these over an FL-18. How do you guys like this unit more and why? I do most of my fishing in less than 25′ of water, in fact most of my walleye fishing is done in less than 10 feet of water, sometimes no more than 5 feet deep under the ice! I am wondering how the LX 5 does in shallow water like that. I currently have been using a Showdown Ice Troller for a few years now…which has been frustrating at best to use, haha.

I have the marcum lx5i and love it, great all around unit

You can’t get a better unit I use mine all the time first ice in about 2 to 5ft of water and it works great I just make it so the ducer is just touching the water so I can see my jig as soon as it passes the ice it works like a charm every time

I have used the LX5 a lot in shallow water. If you keep the transducer as high as you can like Dave said and keep it on the 20 degree cone you can see enough of the water column to really be affective and know what’s going on below you in shallow water. The other thing I really like with the LX5 besides the movable zoom is the super fine line option, which gives you 3/4″ target separation.

I’ve gotten to use an FL 18 over the years, it is fantastic in shallow water. However I don’t think any of the Vexilar units touch the features of the LX 5-9 series of fish finders. Can’t wait to get the LX-5 and see how the fine line works on those shallow walleyes.

I’ve had a FL-18 for the last 3 seasons, great rock solid unit. But this season I plan on picking up a LX-5 to use as my main unit due to the some of the advanced features others mentioned. Super excited for the movable zoom as I fish suspended crappies often. Many times if have the zoom on my vex and those fish would hang out right around 6-8 feet and the vex only zooms the bottoms 6 so I would watch a mark rise and then loose good separation when it got out of the zoom window. I know for a fact that has cost me fish over the years. Will still keep the Vex for back up and other fishing buddies to use.

Kinda like my old Showdown Ice Troller- it will be a good “buddy” unit to take along when I have a friend with me. It does fine when you are over a school of hungry bluegills/crappie…..which covers 95% of the times I take a friend with me, haha.

using my fl18 in shallow water was a little better than my fl8 but not much. even in LP mode, in 5-8 ft of water, you can’ t get even a 3mm jig down to a line. it’s a thick red mark. so everything else is just as blown up. it was infuriating. I looked at a buddies lx3 5 years ago and was like that is much clearer.

the difference is when you turn the vexilar’s gain to 0, it’s the equivalent truly of turning a marcum’s gain to 2. but with marcum turning ti to 0 actually clears the screen. then you slowly start cranking it back up until your jig is that thin line (I’m not even talking about the Super fine line feature yet!)

marcums to me are superior in shallow water over any other unit I’ve ever seen. The VX1 Pro is to me a better comparison to the fl18. I switched to a vx1 after my fl18 and I thought THAT was even a better unit.

I pulled the trigger today on the LX-5. Marine General had a deal on them, I can’t wait for the UPS/Fed-Ex guy to drop it off (at work, at home it would get stolen off my door step, haha). You guys at IDO are a helluva group of salesmen for Marcum, now I gotta start saving my “allowance” for a new flip-over shack to replace my well used Clam 2000 I’ve used for 10 seasons:-)

Great to hear you found a good deal! You will love it!! And we might even get some ice soon!

Hope so too! Even if it means driving a couple hours to get to it at first, haha:-)

That’s a good price, saw where Reeds will beat any price by $10 at their show before the St Paul ice show

So it arrived today, I’ve had it on the charger since around 9 am this morning. It’s had a good 12 hours of charge and the green light hasn’t shown yet. How long does it take to charge the battery on this unit?

I’ve been told light won’t always necessarily turn green.

I left it plugged in overnight, it finally changed during that time. I’ll have to invest in a battery meter later on for it.