Everyone has personal preferences when it comes to their ice fishing sonar. MarCum has you covered whether you like the proven technology of an ice flasher, or the customization and cutting-edge performance of a digital system.
It’s important to note the differences and strengths between systems, as each category has come a long way in recent history.
There’s no doubt that the COVID era has had an impact on the outdoor industry. With closures, canceled travel plans, or changes in regularly scheduled activities, unprecedented numbers of folks have either found or rekindled a love of the outdoors. During the warmer months, there’s a plethora of activities to get a person out of their home. In the Midwest, we are blessed (or cursed depending on how you look at it) with winter – and it lasts more than just a few months. This can make activities a bit harder to find, or at times convince yourself to participate in outdoor activities.
Enter ice fishing season.
If you know you want to re-power your ice fishing fish finder or underwater fishing camera with Lithium, but you don’t know why, here’s a great article that discusses all the benefits that Lithium has. In general, 12v lithium batteries possess key advantages over SLA batteries, but it’s important to know a bit more about the details of each as your power source may be the most notable piece of ice fishing gear you purchase this season.
If new to the sport or have taken a few years off, one glaring change from mere seasons ago is how Lithium fuel sources have taken the ice by storm. For good reason too, though there is a slightly higher cost of entry, the benefits of Lithium battery technology are many. For most anglers, the weight savings alone are enough to switch out their old Sealed Lead Acid (SLA) batteries, with new Lithium versions weighing less than half of their predecessors. You’ve also got longer run-times, even from batteries with similar amperage output that are not Lithium. That means you can fish for durations numbering days, not hours, with anglers often only re-charging their batteries after a long weekend of use.
“There’s just no other family of systems on the market that serve the bulk of the ice-fishing public like MarCum,” says ice pro Joel Nelson. “Whether you’re a shallow, weedy-water bluegill angler from the south of the ice belt, or you fish deep Canadian Shield lakes for walleye and lake trout, there’s a perfect MarCum for you.”
“They’re right where we left them,” I blurted while quickly dropping another small sucker to whoever was stealing them below. It was a private thought that worked its way out on last season’s first-ice-foray. I was pretty certain they were walleyes, as I’d fished them in the months leading up to ice. They remained right off of a point on the first shoreline break where we’d had two flags fly before drilling the rest of the holes. We jigged up a few perch and walleyes amongst those tip-ups right at dark, before gingerly creeping back to shore. We were on solid ice, a good 6 inches of it, but you never can be too careful. Even when well-prepared, I’m not the guy creeping on a few mere inches like I once was. Age, kids, and some dodgy experiences will do that to you.
TONY ROACH AND JOEL NELSON TALK ABOUT THE PAST 20 YEARS AND EVERYTHING THEY HAVE LEARNED A ANGLERS THROUGH THE LENS OF AN UNDERWATER CAMERA.
Marcum Technologies, the undisputed leader in ice-fishing-specific sonar, takes tech to the next level. Their long-held principle is that features are useless unless they help an angler catch fish, and that can be seen throughout decades of innovation. Patented technology like moveable zoom that led to angler’s ability to target fish anywhere in the water column was the first ping heard round the world among the ice sonar community. They followed it up with additional advancements to help distinguish echoes from noise in an interference rejection system so advanced, it’s also patented.
Electronics are a vital key to success when it comes to hardwater fishing. Sonar units, and underwater cameras alike, both have a specific place in ice fishing. The underwater camera, in particular, has established itself as an important tool. For a number of different reasons, I employ these tools for scouting and fishing on the ice:
Marcum Technologies is a company built upon the sport of ice-fishing, bringing forth patented technology and exclusive features unprecedented in ice electronics. Though at MarCum, our mantra is that features for feature’s sake are worthless unless they put more fish on ice. For the last 20 years, MarCum has brought the bulk of fish-catching invention to the ice market, with a long list of patents, sonar-firsts, and innovations immediately copied by the rest of the industry. MarCum units are hand-built, one at a time, from a blank circuit board on up. All of those advancements have happened right here in the heart of the ice belt, meaning all Marcum sonars are American-made. Below is a list of this year’s systems, and what make them each the top-performing sonar in their respective classes.
