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Hi folks-
I'm back for more help. I fished with a Vexilar FL-18 over the weekend and I'm wondering whether you can tell the relative size of a fish that shows up on the display by the width of the signal on the flasher dial. With my
X75 LCD screen, I can look at a blip on the screen and estimate whether
the fish is tiny, huge, or somewhere in between, just from the size of the blip. Does the same principle apply to the Vexilar flasher?
Thanks.
Don
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The heavier the line the bigger the fish.
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HFT, where are you getting that info? Not that I doubt you, I have been using my vexilar for 3 years and all my the red lines are the same width. As I change to a deeper "mode", the lines get smaller or more compact. I'll watch a little closer next time I go out, but I've had several fish come in at the same time and the lines are the same, when they congregate at the hook, they turn into one large line. When I had a school of perch show up at rockport, the line was 10 feet thick on the screen. Schools of kokanee at causey near the surface show individual fish, but all are the same width. I was just reading my manuel and it does not indicate you can tell size by width of the band.
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[  ] The FL-18 , used in the zoom mode will put a larger red line for larger fish , but in most cases , they don't stay still enough to see that on your Vex !! I drop my underwater camera down and watch the hole my Vex is in !! (usually I'm jigging in that one !! ) And I see the fish that makes the lines , and the ones that are thicker are bigger !! What problem most people have , including myself , is that we don't catch all the fish we see on the Vex , and we can't put the lines and the fish together, but with the help of the underwater camera , I've seen how big they are , even if they don't bite !! Some times it will show thicker if the fish is going straight up toward the bait also !! So if you have a underwater camera , you can see how big it is , but the best way is to ice measure them !!!! The one thing the Vex has over a LCD is that its telling you what the fish is doing right now , where the LCD is a second behind !!
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Well then, what HFT says is true for the FL-18 in zoom mode. I have the FL-8 which doesn't have a zoom. Thanks for clairifying that.
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Kj, I only catch big fish so all I see are heavy lines on my FL8.[ ]
I may be wrong but it seems that when I was reading about my unit, smaller bait fish and such show up as green as stuff gets larger it goes orange than red.as they get bigger the lines seem to double up than triple up.
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[  ] The different colors shows two things , first it shows the fish green when it comes into your cone zone , when it gets alittle closer to the middle of your cone it turns orange , and when its directly below you , it turns red !! Also like kj said , the smaller stuff will show up as green , even if its below you , cause theres not enough mass on the fish to get a clear signal back!!! Just remember if your in 10 ft of water the bottom of your cone is showing 3 ft of the bottom , at 20 ft its showing 6 ft , and 30 ft you see 9 ft and so on , thats with a 19 degree transducer that most people have !! You can get a tighter degree that works better on steep drops if you want , but most of the time a 19 degree will work just fine !!
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When I get to the depth I want to fish, I adjust the gain to show the hook as a thin green line. Anything the size of the hook will show up green on the screen, anything bigger will show up a different color. When a fish comes into the cone, even on the fringe, he will usually be orange or red. Thats because I have focused in on such a small target. I can't remember ever seeing a green fish on the outter perimeter of the cone. Although it is supposed to show up green, most fish move so quickly that if they start green, they pass thru that stage on the screen very quickly. Maybe my eye has been trained to only see red or orange and that could be why I haven't seen green. I have seen plenty of green above my hook and a lot of orange and red, but it has almost always proven to be an air bubble or planton or some other small debris. If it suddenly appears and moves around a bit, it usually is a fish and I go after it, but because of its size, it almost always is red. Regardless, I highly recommend one of these units and they are extremely deadly when you learn how to use it properly. I am sure there is room for learning on my part, but for the most part, I feel quite confident in my ability to use it as my success has shown, even with friends sitting 3 feet from me, I catch fish and they don't get a bite. As the TV show used to say, "No brag... just fact." (grandpa Sonnett from the show Guns of Will Sonnett, am I showing my age?)
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Thanks flagmanonice good info, one thing is for sure I catch alot more fish because of the vex.
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This is my 2nd year using the Vexilar.What an amazing little fishing buddy! Once you get the basic down, then the fun stuff starts, I see something new every time I use it. I was up to Soldier Creek Saturday with a friend, I wouldn't call the bit {lite} but more on the extremely Dainty side. If you weren't zoned in on the vex and your line you would never know a fishie was there, kinda like the one eyed cat watching two mouse holes.I have to agree with kj, I out fished my buddy 4 to 1, easily, all he can say is "YOUR CHEETIN", my reply, "YEP" with a big of course. He'll have one for next year. I did notice the other day at Sportsmans that they had gone up a $100.00 bucks. I wonder, have they made them better, or is this , price and demand??HMMMMMM... Lit, weight, easy to use, and they work!! Well worth the peco's,,I just hope they don't get out-lawed
MB
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[ ] The Sportsmans' stores down here have the FL-8 priced at $299.99 and the FL-18 at $399.99. Problem is all 3 of their stores in Colorado were sold out of the FL-18s last week. I think I found the last one in Colorado at Galyan's in Colo. Spgs.
They really are fun!!
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Your right , I was looking at the FL-18, sorry!!
MB
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They are fun! We were at the outlet on Utah lake about a month ago. An older gentleman moved from his hole to another. I dropped the FL-18 in the hole he was fishing. He looked over and said, "I just fished that hole, there's nothing down there." The vex showed fish so I called my son over and he pulled 4 white bass out as fast as he could get his line down. The fish were holding about 3 feet off the bottom. The older gentleman walked over checked out the vex, said we were cheating, loaded up his stuff and left. Hope we didn't make him feel bad...
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Don take a look at the Marcum units they have more power and are quieter then the vex and they are still not sold out. the LX-1 is $288 and the LX-3 is $388 I am impressed with them.
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I agree. Next year its a Marcum LX-3 for me. Then I won't have to beg to use my son's Vexilar FL-18. Maybe we will see some new models by then too.
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Another option to consider is a unit like my Raytheon L470 (discontinued) fishfinder. It cost me $390 a year ago. It comes with a feature called "A-scope" which shows raw sonar data directly from the transducer beam (which is the same way a flasher functions). This gives one a "real time" image of fish and bottom structure directly below the transducer. It also displays a numeric reading on the bottom of the scope image informing me of the diameter of the sonar beam where it meets the bottom. I don't have three colors (like a Vexilar) but I can clearly see the size of the fish, where it is located in the beam, and the A-scope only takes up 1/3 of my screen, which means if I look away the history of what I missed is displayed on the left side of the screen. Also, I end up with a fishfinder that has zoom (up to x8 magnification), side-look, bottom lock, speed, temperature, 500 W(rms) (as others have said when fishing next to other fishfinders -- the one with the most power wins) and 240 X 128 pixels. It is a little more work to rig it to use it for ice fishing than a flasher, but in my opinion well worth the effort.
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