Garmin tackles ice fishing

[LWINCHESTER2]

And in a big way.

http://newsroom.garmin.com/press-rel...hard-water-sol

[hays47]

I tackled it a little ahead of them. 92sv echomap chirp with ps21 and 8hw ice ducer. Their package a lot neater than mine . But the dual lifepo4 batteries give me 48 AH reserve as opposed to the 12 AH of Garmin package. Anyway glad to see Garmin starting to take the ice fishing equipment seriously. Hopefully the high cost does not prevent it from becoming a success.

[LWINCHESTER2]

The PS22 is going to be a killer for ice fishing and jigging in general. When use as DownVu Live it can't have the range that the ForwardVu would have but seeing in two directions at the same time will cut the rotation search in half.

That's some setup you have. You guys that ice fish seem to get real serious about it. I don't ice fish but if I did, I'd have to have Panoptix.

[ifishinxs]

That is bad A%*. I may have to sell off my Marcum and pick up the kit.

[Schins]

neat

[LWINCHESTER2]

The PS22 is going to take center stage in the Panoptix arena. Mount it for LiveVu Forward and look around at a distance. Rotate it to LiveVu Down and start jigging. All you guys making your own sticks for yourself and to sell should get some business. The separate retail price is going to be $999.99. Now think about it. That means you're going to see some real bargains on the PS21's. I've already seen some on the net for $700. My bet is they will come down some more.

Then there is the GT10HN-IF. I just read that that it is an adjustable cone 8-16 degrees and is a 500 watt transducer. 8 pin cable but also comes with the 4 pin adapter. I'm no ice fisherman but I'd like to have this transducer for the 8 degrees.

[Schins]

I don't see the value of LiveVu down. My PS-21 sees my bait on the bottom under the boat already, and when it might not, the regular 2D sees it

[LWINCHESTER2]

The effective range of the PS21 seems to be dependent on the depth of the water you are in. So just for illustration let's say you can see 80 ft well. The PS22 should do the very same thing. Now rotate the transducer to point down. With the LiveVu Down software the screen would be showing you 40 ft to the front and 40 ft to the rear, AT THE SAME TIME. The same would apply if you had it pointed left and right. 40 ft each way, at the same time. You still know how far and how deep.

Now I don't know how that applies to an ice fisherman. But I know how it would apply to jigging for walleye in normal water. Seldom are the walleye I find stationary. They are swimming, going somewhere, on the prowl. If, when I see them I can get down to them and catch one, it stalls them for a minute or two. They are distracted. It's critical to get that fish in, off the hook and back down to them as quickly as possible. Often the time it takes to get the fish off the hook takes some fiddling and that's just enough time for them to move. The PS21 would take twice as much rotation time to see which direction they went. Just getting to 100 ft in time is often too much time.

[DonnieG]

And in a big way.

http://newsroom.garmin.com/press-rel...hard-water-sol

Leonard, would you give me a call when Fontana freezes over..I have never ice fished and could be there in a couple of hours.

Always wanted to fish Fontana

[LWINCHESTER2]

Haha. It has frozen over a few years ago. Man was I dumb. Got to the ramp and another guy was there and decided to launch anyway. Watched him break the ice, tear the lights off his trailer and transducers off the transom. He went on fishing. So I thought, why not, he's already broke up the ice. I won't tear up anything. I'll just follow his trail through the ice downstream until we get out of the ice. And I did that. The deeper water never freezes. Never even considered that when it's that cold it freezes back real quick. That was the start and end of my ice fishing.