Open Water Unit vs Ice unit

Just wondering if any of you use an open water unit for ice fishing. Been throwing around the idea of fishing with HDS 7 on the ice. Any advice would be appreciated.

Works fine. Just a matter of.persoal preferences for display and level of separation.

Yeah, I use a LX-9 right now, just thought it would be nice to have maps with gps all in one unit. I could always go with the RT-9 platform but that looks to be very spendy.

I’ve been using an HDS5 the last couple years and it’s worked well, it cost about $100 to set it up on a genz box. All you need is the box, transducer, and a battery, but there’s quite a few settings that need to be adjusted to make it work well. I like the HDS better than my vex for shallow water and the vex is better for deeper water.

Here’s a rough shot of the set-up, and that’s a 1/16th oz buckshot spoon a foot off the bottom in about 7 fow.

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What about using a Humminbird 997 C SI in a fish house?

I put my 898cSI on a genz box and my HDSI duecer on a pole.

Thinking i could really use a bow mounted 360 transducer this winter to drp down a hole.

I mainly use my 898 for GPS. Has all my waypoints, screencaptures of bottom contents, etc…Sometimes when searching i’ll use the SI.

My 898 is on the floor of my truck all winter long for GPS purposes.
Earlier in the year i mount it to my otter sled with a ram mount (The whole genz box) for GPS while i’m walking.

Here it is. Mounted up with run/gun rod holders too.

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FB&R, great idea. I could use my 997 in the house stationary and then make a box with the GPS mounted on it to use as a mobile unit to find contours. (is this what you mean?)

Fully loaded for a walk

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I absolutely prefer fishing with my marcum though.
Rod holders for run/gun fishing too.
Lure lightning for charging the glow lures.

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Buzz wrote:

What about using a Humminbird 997 C SI in a fish house?

I only purchased a side imaging locator this summer and haven’t had time to experiment with this yet, but it seems like a great idea/plan…

Take a Marcum camera panner and attach a lightweight aluminum pole to one end and on the other end attach your side imaging transducer… Set it up in a hole and using the panner you should be able to get a 360 look at what down there. I don’t think it will be as useful to mark fish but it will be awesome for narrowing down the search for the spot on the spot.

Will

I just sold my boat with a Bird 788ci. I built a box to mount it on just for navigation and then used my vexilar. I regret selling it. I have a 997c si which I could mount on the box I made, but now need to buy power chords and another transducer(would not be worth removing each year). I may sell the 997 and get a 858 with internal antenna for ice fishing.

I use my HDS5 and like it better than a flasher. Cabela’s has a bag with a plastic base that you can mount the HDS5 on. It has a spot for a 12 volt battery and an ice ducer. It takes a lot of juice to run the HDS5 all day. It helps if you turn the brightness down on the unit. The setup also works well with a suction cup ducer if you do a fly in or anywhere you can’t take your boat. Vexilar has a 9 Ah battery that works better than Cabela’s 8 Ah rechargeable.

asch wrote:

I use my HDS5 and like it better than a flasher. Cabela’s has a bag with a plastic base that you can mount the HDS5 on. It has a spot for a 12 volt battery and an ice ducer. It takes a lot of juice to run the HDS5 all day. It helps if you turn the brightness down on the unit. The setup also works well with a suction cup ducer if you do a fly in or anywhere you can’t take your boat. Vexilar has a 9 Ah battery that works better than Cabela’s 8 Ah rechargeable.

I use a 10ah battery with the HDS5 and it will last a full day on the ice.