Fishing Michigan

What are the advantages of using a flasher like Vexilar units on open water?  Quite a few actually.

I mentioned realtime readings in the prior piece.  This means whatever you are reading is actually happening at that moment.  The flasher units do not need to interpret what the signals mean and then display the information into a visual representation. What you see, is what you have right then and there.

Flashers give you an exact type of bottom content as you travel over that area.  Is it flat, soft, or hard bottom.  Are there weeds or are they scarce and if there are weeds, are there fish lurking within.  With the FL-18’s or FL-20’s, you can zoom on the bottom six foot and get the separation between fish and lake bed that you cannot get with a traditional fish finder.

If you are vertical jigging in the Detroit River or other body of water where the currents are moving fast and control of your jig is important, the flashers really shine.  Just like during ice fishing, you see your jig, you see the bottom, you see the fish, fish rises to jig, jig meets fish and pretty much set the hook.  Ok, that’s a little simplified, but not by much.

The false readings you get with traditional fish finders just don’t happen with a flasher.  Often a fish finder or sonar unit will read fish by checking for an air bladder and sending the results back to the unit.  Bigger the bladder, the bigger the representation on the unit’s display. 

Now use a Vexilar or some other type of unit.  Its June, walleye fishing at its best, and the mayfly hatch is in full swing.  You can actually pick up the mayflies (also called wigglers) on your screen as lil’ green specs, then you see the big red marks representing walleyes.  Now you know the hatch is on in that locale, and you know the depth where the walleye are feeding.  Time to change up your tactics to “match the hatch”.  Not literally like in fly fishing streams,  but get your lures, rigs and inline spinners down to where the walleye are.

Just because winter is about to end, do not be in a rush to put away your 3-color flashers into storage until the next ice season.  Although most folks think the Vexilar units are just for winter and ice fishing, they can be an invaluable tool during the open water months as well.

The open water transducers in come in many models to fit your application.  I use one on the electric trolling motor for the inland lakes.  On the big lakes, and the bigger boat, I have a high speed transducer set up.  If you have a fiberglass boat you can use the hull thru ducer and epoxy it to shoot straight down.  If you run an aluminum boat, then there is an aluma-ducer  available.

Using a flasher really seems to be a lost art on open water, and for folks who aren’t using this available technology, they really are missing out.  Flashers give you the picture as it happens in realtime,  there is no delay over what you see, and what is happening in the water.  If you don’t have an ice fishing system already, there is another option for you.  The FL-10 is an in dash unit that can be rigged just like I already described.  Some will rig one in the console, others will install a second one in the bow as well, depending on the type/design of the  boat you are using.

Just a quick reference as to how I have it rigged.  I used my FL-8’s last year, since I replaced them with the FL-20’sduring the winter, I will be using those.  They are the same transducers.  In the 16 ft duck boat for the inland lakes, I have my unit in the bow to read off the trolling motor.  In the big boat, or bigger boat I use a RAM mount on the dash.  Both transducers, although different styles,  are 12 degree units.  During the summer when the fish are shallower (walleye) a 19′ ducer is fine.  When you start getting into that 30 to 40 ft range during the hotter months is when the 12′ ducer shines.  Now if I take up salmon fishing the 12 degree will work, but if I was rigging a boat just for salmon fishing in deep water, then I would go with the 9′ transducer.  The FL-20 will read down to 200 ft, so in most applications in Michigan waters, I should be ok there too.