Vexilar FL-18 thru ice?

[ILLEYE]

Was playing with a friend's FL18 this past weekend. I was wondering if you can read thru ice with the unit? It was good clear ice, but I couldn't get it to read. Can it be done? Thanks.

[Brian_MN]

Squirt a little water on the ice and it should work great. Yesterday I was able to see a jig in 30 feet of water while shooting through 10 inches of ice with my FL-18. I was just experimenting to see if I could scout for fish without drilling holes.

Has anyone else noticed how much more sensitive these seem to be compared to older FL-8's? I can see a Nils Master baby shad in 30 feet with the gain set all the way down, in normal mode. In low power mode I only need to turn the gain up to 3 or so.

[Dave S]

I am certain you can read through hard clear ice with the Vexilar. Trick is that you can not have any air between the bottom of the transducer and top surface of the ice. Just pour a little puddle of water on the ice and set the tranducer in the puddle of water. I have a Vexilar FL-8 and shoot through the ice all the time doing this.

If it gets really cold I take along a little RV antifreeze in a empty small squirt bottle. RV antifreeze is enviromental friendly as you can drink it and it doesn't freeze like a bottle of water might.

The only time you might have difficultly is if the ice has a bunch of snow on top of it or the ice is getting rotten and has allot of trapped air within the ice.