Fishing Forum

Hi all,
I read a post last week asking about "how you rig your ice fishing transducer" and I finally got around to taking some pics and posting, and now I can't find the post...so I'm starting a new one.

Since I run around in a 14' aluminum boat, want to ice fish, and have a 21 foot family Malibu Wakeboard boat also, and I want to have the sonar/gps available at all times on whatever rig, I needed to make my setup portable, yet powerful. I wasn't impressed with the "fishing buddy" at Sportsmans.

For my Wakeboard boat and my aluminum boat, I purchased regulation transducer brackets that bolt to the transom. That seems to work the best. For the times when I go to Fish Lake and rent a boat, or when I ice fish, I bought one of those "portable transducer mounts" from Sportsmans. It just clamps onto the transom of a boat. For ice fishing, it clamps onto a 2x4 that lays across your icehole. (That sounds funny...)
Obviously will work better if you have a dedicated icehole for the finder.

I also used a little Craftsman tool pouch bag, with a piece of wood in the bottom that I mounted my battery and my sonar to. Its extremely portable, will last 3 to 4 days on a charge, and I can move it from rig to rig or ice fishing in minutes.

Here are the pics. I've only had the setup for a little over a month now, and it works great. The unit in a Lowrance M68C map unit. You can buy the M68C "IceMachine" which comes with the handy case, battery, etc, but its about $100 more expensive and it didn't have a boat friendly transducer with it, so I would have had to buy an additional transducer and it would have ended up being about $200 more expensive than the way I did it. I like my carrying case better anyway.

Hope it helps, enjoy.

I'll be up to Strawberry on the 24th. And by the way, I saw in another post that on the 18th somebody thought Jordanelle was capped?...I boated on it on Sunday the 19th. No ice at all except at the far Rock Cliff end, about 50 yards of thin ice.

Randy

[font "Comic Sans MS"][black][size 3](edit) Unchecked In-line option on picture attachments so all can see pictures. Randy, go read [/size][/black][/font][url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=166616;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread"][black][size 3]How to use the "InLine" Option with attachments[/size][/black][/url][font "Comic Sans MS"][black][size 3] so you can be a pro at picture posting. Any questions, just ask and I'll be glad to help you. Thanks! BLM[/size][/black][/font]
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[font "Arial Black"][red][size 3] Looks like a very nice setup and cheap enough to make. Thanks for thee idea, I am going to try that out. I'll let you know how it works for me.[/size][/red][/font]
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[font "Arial Black"][#ff0000][size 3] AFDan52[/size][/#ff0000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][black][size 3]Nice, clean set up! Just the way I like'em! Where did you buy the aluminum transducer mount and what brand is it? Thanks![/size][/black][/font]
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Thanks for the kind words, I was actually very pleased with the way it turned out myself.
The fishfinder (Lowrance M68c map), the battery, and the aluminum portable transducer bracket, were all purchased at Sportsmans Warehouse in Midvale.
I don't remember the brand name of the transducer bracket, but they are on the same aisle that the fishfinders are on. As you are looking at the Fishfinder displays they have set up, turn around and step to the right. There are two different portable transducer mounts, a heavy duty and a light duty. I bought the light duty and I think it was like $19.00 or something like that. I also had to purchase the transducer bracket for like $2.99. (Same area in the aisle, you need to buy the bracket that matches the brand of your fishfinder.)
The battery I bought is right next to the Fishfinders also. Kindof pricey, ($19.00) but they are supposed to last 5 years or so. I thought about using rechargable AA's, but I use those for other electronic gadgets that I have and can't usually get a full day out of them. I have run my unit on one charge for 3 days in a row and it was still at 11.5 volts after 3 full days of use...and my unit is the color backlit model, with a GPS, so it sucks the energy!
The only thing I didn't buy at Sportsmans, was the little black tool pouch, which I actually got as a Christmas present last year and I hadn't used it yet!

Hope this helps, I've really enjoyed the setup.

Randy
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][black][size 4]Thanks for the info and ideas. I have 3 fish finders and 2 boats and I've wanted to use one of the finders for ice fishing. Your ideas will help - - I especially like the portable transducer mount - - never seen one before.[/size][/black][/font]
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