Thanks for the reply guys. Im not sure how I skipped over that.

Anyone know why the rule is in place? Why is bait OK for one state and not another. Isn’t most bait farm grown and not caught wild?

Its all personal preference when it comes to the big brands flagship bibs and jackets. For my boat I have Frabill F4s and they are great. For ice fishing I just picked up the new Ice Armor xtreme cold weathers and they too are pretty sweet. They float like the strikers do if that is a selling point for you (to me it doesnt matter) and they have a great zip in and out liner.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

Eye student, Do you know where they would taste really good.? At the IDO get together. hinthint.

Fish Whistle, Ahhhhh – what does the sleeper house smell like about an hour after your meals?

It can at times get out of control. But if there is one bonus it is by the end of the 3-4 days everyone’s bucket crap smells the same. We are off to lake of the woods next weekend for our trip this year.

We usually do one sleeper house trip a year. Historically we have done venison meat balls, venison steaks, chili, potato soup, shore lunch etc. Really anything that is easy to premake at home and cook when you get out there.

My insurance company says as long as it’s covered with comprehensive they will cover the removal and the vehicle. They will not help with the fines though.

biggill wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Fish Whistle Outdoors wrote:</div>
Is it just me or does this completely take the fun out of fishing?

I don’t find drilling dozens of holes a lot of “fun”.

I don’t find it fun either, but I would feel very lazy using this and lazy fishing doesn’t seem fun to me either.

Repeat post sorry

Is it just me or does this completely take the fun out of fishing?

ClownColor wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>CaptainMusky wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Fish Whistle Outdoors wrote:</div>
Costas are nice but very expensive if you need to fix them.

costas have a lifetime warranty. Of you have an issue they fix it free, but you do have to pay an $11.95 processing fee.

Wish that was true unfortuntaly. Their warranty covers manufacture defects just like a $20 pair manufacture would. You snap a $200 st croix rod, they will send you a new one. Costa will part it out and you will be better off buying a new pair. Heck, they do not even give you a break on a scratched lense.

Im hard on my glasses and have had multiple lens’s in multiple pairs. Costas lens’s are much more expensive than what you can otherwise get. I’ve had glass lens’s and I abuse them just the same. I’ve worn Costas and for the price the difference you get in sight quality compared to prisms or even some strike kings is not worth it in my opinion.

Not all of us lounge in a boat all day and then put our glasses away. My boat glasses are the same glasses I use when I ride motorcycles, wear at work etc. To me it’s no different than buying a new fully loaded pick up truck that you drive to work in your suit and tie everyday. It’s a whole lot of money for something that other people are hard on and wear in different conditions.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Fish Whistle Outdoors wrote:</div>
Try a different SD card. The one you have has some serious lag and you may get some better recording quality out of it too.

every video i’ve seen from the Recon plus has shown video lag sofar…

I am told this is because of using cheap or counterfeit SD cards that are often bought on Amazon or similar retailers. You want to have a quality SD card for the video. There is a video that was posted using a bad SD card, and then a good one and the difference is huge.

Good SD card

Bad SD card

Try a different SD card. The one you have has some serious lag and you may get some better recording quality out of it too.

Costas are nice but very expensive if you need to fix them. I have a pair of Oakleys with the prism lens. Oakley has a selection of polarized lens’s that do well in different environments. The prism lens is what they offer for the water and they have been great. They actually developed the lens with the Navy so they could offer a quality polarized option they could wear on duty. They are sweet on the water and night and day different than any other pair of Oakley polarized glasses I’ve owned. The difference in lens is undisputable. I used to think if the glasses are polarized they are good for the water. I do not think that anymore. Every lens is different and every lens tint will have a different effect.

Alot of people will buy anything that says polarized thinking they are OK, but you may be buying the wrong tint of lens to go along with having polarized lens’s for water use. There is a big difference with lens color and lens quality when you are looking at water and if you don’t know then you don’t get the quality you expected.

Well looks like im driving my Chevy into the ground then. Don’t think I’ll fork out the money for a new 3/4 ton these days. So I’ll stick to what’s been working new boats and old trucks haha….Priorities…..

Not trying to be rude but your title states long box and in your post you said 6.5′. Is 6.5′ really a long box on new half ton trucks these days? If that’s the case I guess I won’t be buying one. I have an 8′ bed and even that isn’t big enough at times when taking friends and gear on trips.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

remember it’s a new form factor gen1 product, many of Marcum’s gen1 products (remote panner comes to mind) have issues that are mostly fixed in future gens… I’ll wait and not be a free product tester….

Probably not a bad idea. I am interested to know if that lag was user error or generated in the DVR. It almost looks like the video is sped up.

The link did not show up until this morning. Do moderators have to check links? I didnt make any changes to my post and now the video has showed up…Anyway like I said, that video has a crap load of lag. The other video the guy posted does not. Im just going to have to get one and see. The picture looks great in that stained water, I am interested about that lag with the DVR.

Footage in this video shows lag.

Not sure why my link isn’t working. On YouTube it is titled marcum recon five plus test busse lake. There are two videos one shows lag one looks OK.

Im going to get one and will share the videos.

(Edited by BK)

I also want to see some shows on smaller (1000ish acres or less) HEAVILY pressured lakes. What would you guys do?

When fishing in our permanent house which is an old pop up camper and usually in 12-16 FOW we cant use a single locator, the holes are not close enough to share one. We can fish my Marcum LX6s or my old LC3tc any Vex and any traditional Humminbird Ice unit (35, 45, 55). We do get interference on these units, but we are able to quickly sort it out using one locators IR settings. I am familiar with Humminbird products and I have tried every possible setting combination I could think of on the Helix 5 ICE. What it comes down to is this is not a unit I would recommend for ice fishing. Buy one of Humminbird ICE 35, 45 or 55 or buy a Helix for the boat. I love my Helix 9s in my boat, they are great. But the “ICE Helix” is garbage and useful for a GPS but that is about it if you want to fish with friends.

I am going to make a video showing the interference and comparing it with other locators when the weather cooperates again unless the thing sells before that.

I didn’t want to spend the money on di as this is a dedicated ice unit and I have 9s on my boat. Wouldn’t it have been smart for hunminbird to make an advertised ice unit be a little more effective? The exact answer I have from customer support is to stay 6-10 feet away from any other brand locator. So fishing in a house or portable is out of the question. Straight from the horse’s mouth. Below is their exact quote.

“As all of the previous representative stated, if there are multiple units operating in the same area, you will experience sonar to sonar crosstalk. We recommend keeping the units at least 6-10 feet apart.”

I don’t have that problem with my marcum, never did with a vex or ice 45.

We are headed up the second weekend in February. Not sure what to expect either. We are going thru Jeff’s ice o miniums. I will definitely give a report on the fishing and experience at Jeff’s.

It’s a bummer. Humminbird customer service says due to the design you have to stay 6-10 feet away from other brands when using this locator. Pretty useless in a shack. For sale.

We are taking our first lotw trip in feb to Jeffs Ice o Miniums. We used to fish Mille Lacs alot. Time to move on, although it sounds decent this year. For February though, id pass.

We have a week of above freezing temps in southeast wisconsin. A couple shacks came off our lake, but ours and a lot of others are still out there. I will be checking on it daily, but we have it up on wood, out of the water. Hopefully, it gets cold again…

I have had a vexilar FL12 that was a hand me down around four years old. I used it for one season before it got really noisy and did not give a reading anymore. I sold it to a friend who had it repaired by vexilar and it still works. It is now about seven years old.

I then got a humminbird ICE 35. It worked great until it was borrowed by who I thought was a trustworthy person but it was “stolen” from him so I never got it back…

It was replaced by a vexilar FL18 again on a hand me down, around 5 years old. The gain completely stopped working on it and it became very noisy. Sold it to the same buddy who sent it to vex and had it fixed. It still works but is back to being extremely noisy. This unit is probably six years old and he still uses it almost daily.

I then got a Marcum LX3tc and liked it, but only used it for half a season because I won a Humminbird ICE 45. My cousin is still using this unit with no issues. It is on its second season.

The Ice 45 was great but I felt like you had to crank the gain to see smaller jigs. Other than that it was a good unit.

I traded my ICE 45 for a Helix 5 and it took me a while to dial it in, but finally figured out how to block most interference with vexilars. Vexilars effect this unit more than marcums or garmins. If I fish around other people I only use this unit for a GPS. If my girlfriend comes out she will use this unit and as of this morning we got it working next to a vexilar in a location we otherwise could not. The key was running 83khz around other people, cranking the chart speed and the noise filter and manually setting the depth. For a while we couldnt dial it in as easily as you can a vex or a marcum. 200khz is unfishable if you are within ten feet of a vexilar or in the same house. Otherwise it works great.

I also got a Marcum LX6s this year on a partial trade for an old car I had. I have been using this almost every day for about a week now. I had some interference on it with the bird and vex near by, but with all of the different settings on it I dialed it in and it is crisp and fast. This is now my go to unit.

Ive used them all. I will continue to use them all, I really dont have a brand that I prefer. I get criticism all the time because I am always switching two things, motorcycles and fishing gear! Next year I will probably have something completely different again. I will probably keep the bird no matter what so I can share lake chips in my boat. But I need to try a high end Vex once just to see what its like.

When you pay for a dedicated video editor that works with windows media player, your hands are tied. I know I dont want to take two hours of video and not be able to edit it to where the action is without doing unnecessary steps to make it work on my software. He has a point in the video, you go buy almost any other camera anywhere else and it will work with windows media player without having to wait on files to convert.

These are not underwater shots, but just an unboxing. He is sending it back because it will not work with windows media player which makes it a pain for him to edit videos. In my opinion, thats a pretty basic thing they could have accomplished. Ill be saving my money for something else as well.

See video below

I am having issues with my lx6 with ANY brand unit. also on version 5.10. It is at least not as bad as my Helix 5. I have 9s on my boat and love them, but the helix 5 ice has been unfishable near any unit. The marcum is just annoying but you can still do it.