Weekend Flasher Observations Shared

I’d like to share a few observations from the weekend regarding flashers, bottom content, and interference.
Four units at play:
10yr old Marcum VX-1P (Mine)
New Marcum VX-1
Older Vexliar FL8
New Humminbird Ice-35
Fishing in a 10×20 skid house, as spread out as we could be, the Fl8 and old VX-1 were mostly useless due to interference. The newer Marcum Vx-1 could be tuned to be usable. The Ice-35 performed flawlessly. I had never had this much interference. The newer VX-1 was throwing me the most trouble on my older VX-1.
Bottom content was something hard, snaggy, uneven and unknown. Bite sucked and fished were skirting around us. Resort drilled holes in the day house (Crapper)
We moved into an 8×8 day house less than 100’ away from the bigger house. Same flashers. New tighter quarters. Much tighter. Different bottom content. No interference issues with any of the units that an IR button couldn’t fix. Same depth. So, it isn’t the flashers necessarily causing the issue; changing bottom content absolutely made a difference.
I’ve never ran into a situation where my VX-1 was rendered useless due to interference. We were on some really cruddy bottom, possibly boulders bouncing our sonar signal all over…I don’t know. It was a first for me. Made me want to buy an Ice-35…(I actually tried to offer $100 and my VX-1 for the ICE 35 within the first 30 minutes of our interference issues)
Side note, there were no fish in the bigger house either. Definite bottom content change. Definite impact to our flashers.
So next time you’re darned pissed at your flasher, understand that there are certain situations that can cause them grief. Can be other units, can be bottom content. I’ve recognized this with my open water units, double echos, etc. But never had much of an issue on ice with my VX-1 on ice.
I’ll be buying an ICE-35 simply because it performed better, and lines on the flasher were much more defined than my old VX-1, interference was not an issue, it was just performing better.
I need a back-up unit anyway for guests, and my VX-1 will work.
Drill a few more holes before you throw your flasher away. Simply process of elimination. I was impressed with the ICE 35 though.

When our 10×20 skid house was moved 100′ off the transition our flashers also performed very well together. Something causing grief on the bottom. Wish I had brought my underwater camera.

Here’s an interesting story regarding sonar. I have a FL28 with the proview ducer and for the most part I’m luke warm with it. I think I’d prefer a hard selectable beam size, but I fish a lot of deeper water so I’ve dealt with it ok. At any rate, I always keep the gain to zero even in 30ft of water (to reduce the clutter) and I had a mark come in on the bottom just like the walleyes had been. It looked like a decent size mark and I was able to raise it up a foot several times but then it would just sink back down slowly and stay there. I played this game for about 30 min and finally got frustrated and dropped the camera down to see what the heck was going on. Turns out it was a big crayfish messing with me. I was pretty impressed that I was able to pick that thing up in the rocks, but then I wondered if I really need to be seeing that. Almost too sensitive, especially with my gain at zero.

FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:

So next time you’re darned pissed at your flasher, understand that there are certain situations that can cause them grief. Can be other units, can be bottom content.

I just had a similar issue this weekend! I was fishing by myself (no one within 200 yards) on a break with weird bottom content and my FL 18 had a ton of interference. Moved near the top and the bottom, and it was fine….

very good read guys that kinda clearsthings up alot. i have a fl-20 and 1st edition vx-1 for a spare. they seem to play pretty nice together

sidenote,
i have a bud that has a super old unit before it was vew it was Hondex similar to fl-8 but no interference rejection at all and creates interference for ever other unit within 50yrds
there has been times we dont allow him to use it and have asked his wife to get him a newer unit for bday or xmas lol

Dtro the things you are describing are exactly why I stopped using the vexilars. 0 gain should be just that nothing. … It should match the display in my eyes. I couldn’t stand the blob display of the jig. It is a very sensitive unit no doubt but they manage the gain setting poorly. Did you run humminbird for a while? How was that display vs vex? Still large marks? Good info. .

With the vex I’ve always switched to low power mode when the returns were too strong. Not my favorite thing to do but it can help.

I too would prefer the dual or triple beam on the 28. I kninda think the pro view ducer was intended for the less experienced angler who doesn’t understand transducers and how the cone angle really works.