Thoughts on Humminbird Helix 5 for ice fishing?

Been doing some research and reading on the helix 5 with GPS. For the price and capability it looks like a great unit to try.
It retails at $300 and with that you get sonar and gps. Sounds like quite the catch with being able to throw a lake chip in it and troll around on the ice. I’ve played with it a little at cabelas and it also has a flasher view and ice fishing mode. It can pretty much do everything an LX-7 can do except you get mapping and GPS with it, I guess Marcum’s equivalent would be the RT-9 but that’s $1700. The helix would fit great in a ice pack/soft case too.

I love my marcum but this thing is half the price and has twice as many features. I’m just curious to know if anyone else has one already or has used one for ice fishing.
How is the interference with other units?
Does it lag at all with the LCD screen?
I know it’s the end of ice season but I’m preparing to upgrade for next year!

Have not fished with Helix-5 but was thinking along the same lines of picking one up for ice fishing. Currently am using an Ice 45 which is doing the job fine but without GPS, getting on the exact spot can require some work. My son-in-law bought a HumminBird 386 last fall and we have been using it ice fishing. It seems as fast as the Ice 45 and has all the same features when it is ice fishing mode. The flasher is nice but if you prefer you can use the normal graph mode with a zoom window. With all the features that Ice 45 has plus GPS and a LakeMaster map chip we can really dial in on the spots we want to fish. I have never fished with a Marcum LX-7 so can not compare the two.

Ice fishing with a summer gear is cool and has advantages over typical flashers. I icefish with a Lowrance Elite-4 & 5x with the Lowrance Ice Pack, works great!

I’ve been using my 788ci HD on the ice for a few years now. I really like it.

No reason a Helix couldn’t do the same thing. I think you’ll like it.

GPS & Lake maps rght on the unit is pretty damn nice!

I bought one and put it in a marcum shuttle for ice fishing. I’ll use it next to my 597 in the boat now as a stand alone sonar and use the 597 for the gps screen. There was absolutely no lag on the screen when jigging. I did have a little interference fishing next to a vexilar though. That was on the 200 khz setting.

inskom wrote:

I’ve been using my 788ci HD on the ice for a few years now. I really like it.

No reason a Helix couldn’t do the same thing. I think you’ll like it.

GPS & Lake maps rght on the unit is pretty damn nice!

Same thing i use.
Before i got the 788 i was using my 898.
I still primarily jig with my marcum and use the 788 for GPS.
Helix units look nice and small. I think they will work fantastic.

I have played around at the store. Nice colors. I have no need for gps and our lakes over here are not mapped.

I have a number of Marcum sonars and have been happy with the performance. I needed a GPS that would work with a LakeMaster chip but no handheld unit was available. So I thought hay I will get the ice pack kit and use my 788ci bird as a GPS and sonar. I had high hopes for this combination.

I like the GPS the sonar works ok but if you fish with any one else there will be interference. The battery life when using both sonar and GPS is not that great. I pretty much don’t use the sonar any more ice fishing. I just think the way the LX7 presents sonar info is so much better and I can change interference settings when fishing with friends.

I did buy the softpack kit for it with the battery. It is poorly designed hard to stow the transducer and float and very hard to have access to the battery when trying to chrge the unit. I would pass on the humminbird soft pack and battery and mybe use a Genz box or something like it.

My plan for next year is to mount the 788ci to my side by side and use it as a GPS only. Or as a back up sonar if needed.
Bob