Im contemplating buying a regular boat mounted fish finder and trying to somehow rig it for ice fishing. Don't know if this is the best method or going to Cabelas and just buying one of their package deals for the LCD ice fishing kits. What are your personal thoughts and opinions on this. Anything and everything helps. Thanks
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I have a Lowrance x135 that i took out of my boat and set it up for icefishing and it works great, I see no need for 2 finders! Seting it up is easy to do, you just need another power cord and buy a ice transducer and battery.
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I wanted the same thing in a rig. I decided on a Humminbird 385ci. The portable 385 has all the bells and whistles: dual angle tranducer, chart plotter, gps, flasher mode. It comes with a suction cup mounted transducer that sticks on the transom of any boat I'm on.
For ice use I converted the tranducer to mount on a 1" pvc tube that in turn slides into an 1 1/2" tube with a set screw. I can drop the inner tube down far enough for the 'ducer to clear the bottom of the ice. I flip the tube over for carrying. While in use the unit sits on top of the bucket. When not in use, the unit fits perfectly in the bucket.
I've used this set up for two years now and it works really well for me. The conversion back and forth only takes a couple minutes.
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How far into it are you as far as price cost. I obviously want to be as cost effective as I can be, but don't want to be so cheap that I literally can't find fish. My thoughts are leaning toward buying a boat mounted fish finder and somehow rigging it similar to what you have done with yours.
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If you get a chance take a look at the Humminbird Fishin' Buddy series
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The fish finder was spendy, for me at least, about $450.00. I started like you did...just want a unit that will show me fish, then went to a unit that has dual beams to better fish shallow and deep waters. Certainly, I don't need gps and a plotter...but, ya know...it would be handy. Next thing you know...this is what I got. You can spend a lot more money, but you can spend a lot less too.
The bucket and pvc is less than $10. Even less than that if you have the stuff laying around.
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[cool][#0000ff]If you get the "skimmer" transducer you will need to mount it so that it "shoots" straight down. Here are a couple of pics of ways I have rigged them.[/#0000ff]
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