Old Standards On Display, And a New Player Hits the Ice Running

Bottom Line

Bottom Line uses their Fishin’ Buddy system for ice-fishing applications. In the Fishin’ Buddy units, the transducer is built into a telescoping shaft. The shaft is 19 inches long but can be extended to 39 inches, enough to get to the bottom of a lot of ice. Both models have Bottom Line’s sidefinder technology. Each model, the 1200 and 2255, run on three C cell batteries and operate at 455 kHz. The 1200 has 280 watts of peak-to-peak power, the 2255 has 400 watts of peak-to-peak power.

The units have LCD (liquid crystal display) screens. Model 1200 has a screen diagonal of 4.1 inches and has 128 vertical and 64 horizontal pixels. Model 2255 has a screen diagonal of 4.1 inches and 160 vertical and 80 horizontal pixels. An ice-fishing bracket is available that supports the sonar unit over the hole and allows it to rotate to take advantage of the sidefinder feature.

Marcum

Marcum Technologies, a recent newcomer to the sonar field, introduced the LX-3, a color sonar ice-fishing system, for the 2003 season. The system uses LED circuitry, has 1,500 watts of peak-to-peak power, and operates at 200 kHz. The LX-3 uses a three-color display system. Red indicates a strong return signal, orange a medium-strength signal, and yellow a weak signal.

The unit has 20-, 40-, 80-, and 160-foot scales. Two different zoom or magnifying windows can be moved up and down the water column. A 5-foot or 10-foot zoom window is available at the 20- and 40-foot scales. The 5- or 10-foot zoom window can be placed anywhere from the surface to the lake bottom when the 20- or 40-foot scale is used. Likewise, the zoom window is 10 or 20 feet on the 80-foot scale and 20 or 40 feet on the 160-foot scale. The unit comes with a self aligning transducer, 7 amp battery and charging system, and a carrying case.

Two new units are available this year. The LX-1 is a stripped-down version of the LX-3. The specifications are similar to the LX-3, but the LX-1 has no zoom feature, no soft pack, and no digital charging system. The other unit is the LX-i, a shoot-through-the-ice, digital depth-readout system. The unit is a compact flashlight shape with 1,000 watts of peak-to-peak power.

Lowrance

Lowrance is making a serious attempt to become a player in the ice-fishing market with its Ice Machine. Up to now, their product line has consisted of LCD sonar units. While these units worked satisfactorily in a variety of ice-fishing situations, the technology had its drawbacks, particularly in extremely cold weather. The Ice Machine is a complete ice-fishing system with head unit, self leveling transducer, swing out transducer bracket with transducer depth adjustment, battery, charger, and soft carrying case that fits in a 5-gallon bucket.