Has anyone used an Aqua Vu… I mostly Ice fish… So has anyone used an Aqua Vu? Or is a Fish Finder the only way to go? Do the Aqua Vu show fish very far away? How deep can you use them? What recomondation do you guys have? Advantages/Disadvantages… Thanks
I have both a fish cam, and a finder for ice fishing. I choose finder 99 percent of the time but have ran both at times if inside the shanty.. Yep, its fun watching the fish come in on the cam but it tends to cause “a swing and a miss” due to the fact I tend to jerk at the first sign of the, sight bite. One thing the cam will teach a person is the fact fish can mess with your offering without causing your rod tip to even twitch.
I personally find a fish cam worthless unless your in very clear water. And below 40 feet, due to the lack of light, I find them worthless.
Thanks Coldfooter… I wish I could try one.. but I think I might have to go with a Fish Finder… (I searched through old posts and got about the same feeling as what you said.. that they are fun and can learn things.. but seems like most use fish finder)
SOOOOOOOo with that what about the vex? vs fish finder… that vex thingy is much different than the fish finder.. I wasnt all that impressed the only one I saw.. but any insight on them?
I personally dont like a flasher, as others will testify, the darn things give some of us a head ache from to watch it all day. I run an old 2000 watt peek to peek Bottom line 4100 while ice fishing and I can watch my jig just fine at 120’ + at FG, I might soon up grade to 4000 watts. But If I can see my jig at 120’, I certainly know when a mack wanders near and thats all I really care about. All the buttons, bells and whistles wont cause that doo’er to take my offering any faster no matter how purtty the toy is.
The best advice I can give you is try an tag along with those that have a device you might be interested in checking out.
I use both also, like coldfooter said, they are a useful tool but the finder is easier to use and in most cases more versatile. It is really fun to watch what the fish are doing and it is amazing how they will come up to the bait and not take it at times. It depends on the brand of underwater camera, mine has 60ft of cable but the deeper you go the less distance you see. In general you can see 10 to 12 feet in clear water, in water up to 30 or 40ft. So I would say buy the fish finder first if you don’t have one, then if you want to or can afford to, buy a camera too but try and go out with someone that has one first, so you can see if it would be worth it for you. Have you seen the footage that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5shdTPXnj0? It sure gives you a good example of what you will be seeing.
Cameras:
I don’t believe a camera will ever replace a quality fish finder, however; each has advantages and disadvantages. Cameras are a great tool for identifying the species of the fish, so if your targeting trout and you drop it down and see perch you can move to a different location. Camera’s like all other fishing electronics come in a wide variety of prices based on features. Lower end cameras come with 60’ of less of cable usually have a black and white monitor, see only one direction and don’t really provide depth, temp or detail about the direction. Upper end cameras come with a color monitor, longer cable lengths allow you to remotely turn the camera head 360’ and provide information like depth, temp and direction.
How far a camera sees and how deep you can use it depends on water clarity, depth, available light, and the strength of the units artificial light and of course the length of you cable. Cameras don’t give you great depth perception due the magnification properties of water. The other shortfall with a camera is the amount of cable you have in the water, it makes it challenging to move around when searching for fish.
If you mostly ice fish I would recommend a flasher or combination unit like the Lowrance X67c Ice Machine which offers you both a flasher function or standard LCD or a split screen function.
A fish finder uses a transducer to send out signals or “pings” which based on the signal rate of return to the unit and thus how deep it is to the bottom. This is all directly proportional to the transducer and its cone angle. Let’s think of a fish finder like a flashlight. You turn on a flashlight and put the lens on a table the flashlight represents your fish finder and the light beam represents your transducer signal. As you pull the flashlight away from the table the cone or light will get wider, as you pull it away from the table the focus or light concentration gets weaker. However if you re-focus the beam the cone gets more narrow and the concentration gets better. Often times you will see a fish finder that says it has ½” target separation this numeric value is directly proportional to the units power and transducer cone angle. The smaller the cone angle the more focused or concentrated the signal is. The actual formula for determining the cone angle is as follows:
1/2 cone angle multiplied by x 3.14 =________ then divide this number by 180 this will give you the tangent.
Tangent multiplied by (the depth of the water) then multiplied by 2 will give you the cone diameter in feet.
So if I have a 20 degree transducer and I am fishing in 100 feet of water my actual cone of coverage is 35 feet in diameter. If we think about this it basically means I am seeing fish on my finder that can be as far away as 17.5’ from my bait. The shortfall to this is what I gain in diameter I loss in sensitivity. Meaning the signals will be weaker because the power has been spread over more area. On the other hand if I use a 6 degree transducer my coverage is smaller but more concentrated and thus more power is focused and easier to get that target separation. A 6 degree transducer will yield a cone diameter of 10.5’. So now I am seeing 5.25’ feet on either side of my lure. This is also a great angle for guys that hunt burbot at the gorge.
This is also why guys that troll like and increased angle for their transducer it allows them to see the downrigger ball on the graph.
Hope that helps it was a little wordy.
If your willing to take your time and meet different members you can see first hand how most systems work. They all have their different advantages. Members have been more then willing to show me how theirs work over the past couple of years on the lake. Here are my .02 cents on the differnt types.
The cameras are cool to watch but wouldn’t be my first choice. I’ll have to stick to watching others on the lake or fuzzy’s on utube.
Flashers work really good but give me a headache in just a matter of minutes. I have enough of those already.
Regular old fishfinders have all kinds of bells and whistles. Go with someone who has one and see which bells you really like and what you don’t. Then see what the wallet has to say about what you want vs feel you need.
I was asking the same questions that you are - between a flasher (vexilar or marcum) or a regular fish finder. I decided on a regular fish finder after some hard though for several reasons. Flashers are pretty expensive and are primarily used just for ice fishing. Several Fish finders have some sort of flasher option or the like so you can have both a flasher and fish finder at the same time. Also, most fish finder can be nicely adapted to ice fishing and an then be used for the soft water.
I picked up a nice Lowrance for $200, bought a thermal soda bad for $12 to keep it in, $5 of PVC pipe to make a tool to hold the sonar in the water and used a marine battery for power because I lost my little 12V (@$25 to replace). So a total of about $250 compared to flasher which will run you at least $300 but closer to $350-450. I don’t have lots of money so this became an easier choice.
Tested the Lowrance out last week at Scofield and it worked amazingly. We could see fish up to 6 ft down and they were picked up; when there were fish on the FF we got bites; and when the screen was blank we got zero bites. I am happy with my choice, but your needs and circumstances might be different.
I have an AquaVu and three fishfinders (one a Vexilar and the other screen-type fishfinders) rigged to ice fishing and I rarely take the AquaVu out fishing. I consider a fishfinder a necessity for fishing and an AquaVu a fun tool to use occasionally. I would never purchase an AquaVu before I owned a quality fishfinder. There are several reasons that I rarely use my AquaVu:
- Having to haul another item out on the ice.
- On most waters one can only see less than 10’ and one is only seeing a small area at only one depth of water.
- One always risks having a fish wrap around the cable line and breaking off. Or one must pull the camera out of the water while landing a large fish – which is a pain.
- The problem of lining the camera up, either above or to the side so that one can see the fish and the jig.
- One can get distracted playing with the camera and miss bites.
BTW – this has been debated before on this forum, so if you do a search you will find some additional reading.
Thanks EVERYONE!!! Great info.. One last bit of help for a dummy like me. For the Law x135 vs 125 vs 96 there doesnt seem to be much differecne EXCEPT for the peak to peak.. one is 4k one 2400 and the last 1500… What difference does this make? Thanks again everyone.
One more comment that I haven’t seen discussed(or I just missed it) is the fact that a camera just shows you what is in front of the lense. Behind, above and below the lense goes unseen. The camera can’t show the entire column. A finder/flasher will show the entire water column. Many times suspended fish will swim throught the column and you can reel up or down to level of the fish. In my mind a camera is a nice toy. A finder/flasher is a far more useful tool.
I prefer flashers over finders.
Chester
Seems to me that we are comparing apples and oranges.
Neither of them replace the other for any specific purpose.
A fish finder, either flasher or LCD, is good for locating fish, and the Aqua-View is great for learning how fish react to baits.
I really like the way fuzzyfisher uses his, for memorializing a fishing trip and sharing it with others.
The camera is another great tool to add to any fisherman’s arsenal to make the experience more enjoyable.
One other thing that a Vexlar Flasher does, is let you know how far away the fish is from your lure.
I don’t own one but my son does and he has explained it to me this way.
As the fish gets closer to your lure, the im
mage of the fish changes color. This way you know when the fish is right on your lure.
My Eagle FF will show my lure and it will show a fish and let you know what depth both are at, What it doesn’t do is let my know just how close the fish is to my lure.
You also asked what difference there is in different models of the same brand of finder.
The higher the power, the deeper you will see your lure.
If you never fish in water deeper than 50’ any finder will do.
If you fish in over 100’ water, higher power will help you see your lure and the fish.
One more thing that people new to ice fishing don’t always know.
Never use the setting that shows fish. By this I mean the setting that shows the shape of a fish going across your screen.
Turn that setting off and just watch for the arches.
The fish id setting will give you way too many false readings of anything that’s in the water.
If you don’t understand what I’m saying, just ask a sales person or someone on the ice to show you.
I understand.. good post..I do fish 100’ deep sometimes so a higher power would prob be helpfullllll!!! Thanks everyone again.. you guys can sure help a guy out!
I had the x125 on my boat and you have seen how it worked. For the money it was a great monochrome finder. If you buy that one the only problem you will have is hooking up 
.
LOL.. good one.. I do need one that will hook me up tho! Talk about bring the bad out of me! 
oh man… must.. go.. fishin..
go for the X135! [sly] it works great with the Aqua-vu and you can get a ice transducer for it so ya dont have to make any specal thing to go in the water to hold it strate up and down. it will level it’s self every time..
i agree with alot of the other guy’s tho. get a fishfinder first get it down good then go for the cam!
My bro-in-law has an aqua-vu and it’s come in handy for him. At a trip to the Berry last year he was seeing fish on the finder but nothing was making them bite. He lowered his camera down and discovered the fish were pecking at the ground. So he dropped his bait to the bottom and immediately he started hooking fish. I like just using a finder, but those aqua-vus can come in pretty handy when the fish aren’t biting.
Ron where can i get a ice ducer for the x135? ive been looking for one and cant find any.
I posted this on the equipment/tactics board, but Humminbird now makes an ice transducer for their 300 and 500 series fish finders. It may work on other models as well, but those are the only two listed on the package.