SAME INDUSTRY-LEADING SONAR, MORE POWER AND FEATURES

The dog days of summer and that’s your green light to grab your MarCum flasher or digital system from the garage and give it a once over and top off the battery.

The first step in your pre-season routine should be checking your batteries. Most flasher failures on the ice are caused by a bad battery, so now’s the time to inspect your MarCum’s power source.

“You could be kicking yourself later if you don’t take a minute to check everything out now,” says MarCum Pro-Staffer, Joel Nelson. “Nothing will wreck a good day of fishing faster than a bad battery, because there’s nothing you can do about it out on the ice.”

Since introducing cutting edge sonar technology to mechanical flashers nearly 20 years ago, MarCum has sought to build the best sonar on-ice, bar-none. Recent advances saw MarCum bringing the first digital sonar to the market, giving anglers a host of ample options when hitting the ice this winter. Read on to gain a better understanding of your options, and ultimately decide which is best for your style of fishing.

Whether you’re ready for it or not, the ice season is coming to an end sooner than later. For many of us anglers, it was an odd season riddled with less-than-ideal conditions – including lack of ice and excess amounts of snow and ice. With snow melt in full force and deteriorating ice conditions, we can’t help but think of what’s coming next.

The dog days of summer and that’s your green light to grab your MarCum flasher or digital system from the garage and give it a once over and top off the battery.

The first step in your pre-season routine should be checking your batteries. Most flasher failures on the ice are caused by a bad battery, so now’s the time to inspect your MarCum’s power source.

“You could be kicking yourself later if you don’t take a minute to check everything out now,” says MarCum Pro-Staffer, Joel Nelson. “Nothing will wreck a good day of fishing faster than a bad battery, because there’s nothing you can do about it out 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.

Throughout the summer months, schools of crappies typically concentrate themselves along weed edges, as well as pockets and holes in the weedy cover. In certain situations, fish will push further into the weeds and in others, push out away from the edges, but still remain in close proximity to the weeds. Focus your efforts on these keys areas.

As the season progresses, crappies will also inhabit other areas, often in slightly deeper water. Woody cover – such as man-made cribs or submerged timber – act as crappie magnet regardless of the time of year, but they tend to concentrate fish towards the tail end of the summer.

Every year, a new set of anglers both young and old learn to use ice fishing sonar or flashers for the first time.  That said, I encounter many anglers on the hardwater each year that still have their ice sonar depth finder on default factory settings from when they bought the unit 10 years ago.  Whether you’re brand new to the game, or it’s old-hat, here are some answers to age old questions along with new ones to keep it interesting and catch more fish.

One of the most common questions heard from new ice anglers relates to electronics – “Which is better – an underwater camera or a flasher/sonar?” The short answer is that it really depends.

The long answer is that there are certain situations that each unit type excels in. Depth, water clarity, habitat, and fishing style greatly impact which unit is right for a specific set of circumstances. In a perfect world, an ice angler should have both. This is particularly apparent for anglers that target panfish during the winter months.

Everyone wants to be successful on the water. We all love to post on social media and to talk about the fun we had catching fish and spending time together with friends and family. The old adage says, a bad day fishing is still better than a day of work, but no one really likes having a bad day of fishing.

Once you dive into this worthy hobby you will quickly realize that a bad day is relative. For the beginner it could be not catching a single fish. For the guide it could be not filling out a limit. And for the professional it could be not making a top-ten but catching 40-50 target species fish during the eight hour day.

It’s midwinter. Lakes are locked up with a solid layer of ice. Shanty towns dot the landscape – filled with anglers that are willing to trade long rods for those of a shorter variety. Panfish – crappies in particular – are some of the most targeted species throughout the hard water season.  Knowing how to find them and which tools to use will ultimately make for a more successful day on the ice.

It’s this time of year when our ice sonar is swapped for long rods and soft water, but that doesn’t mean your MarCum should be put in the back corner of the garage. All sonar systems, digital or mechanical styles, offer keys and cues that help anglers be more successful on the water

That’s especially true in small crafts like kayaks, canoes, or small skiffs where a larger, permanently mounted traditional LCD display isn’t in play. Here’s just a few ways to trick your craft, whatever it may be, and get the very most from your MarCum.

Press Release – New Hope, MN (9/29/21) – Marcum Technologies, the undisputed leader in ice-fishing-specific sonar and cameras, 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.

Mist from the baitcast reel erupted into the morning air as the crankbait rocketed toward the conspicuous riprap that hugged the edge of the river. As soon as the lure hit the water it was brought to life with a few cranks on the reel.
Instantly the wobble of the lure going back and forth could be felt in the rod tip. It didn’t take very long for the lipped crankbait to start digging in the rocky bottom. Tick, tick, wham! Fish on as the lure got to the edge of the swifter current and it feels like a good one as the fluorocarbon line is being stretched by the bull-dogging fish in the current.

From the day you get your first flasher, the ice-fishing universe is forever changed. Ice anglers go from simply guessing at bites and what may or may not have been a fish, to tracking them throughout the water column. Not only can you use it to find fish and track how they respond to your bait, but you can also use it to find active fish before a line is even wetted.  At one time, it was considered somewhat odd; almost a novelty. Now, ice-fishing electronics are a multi-million dollar category, and the thought of fishing without one seems pointless.

Tony Roach is no stranger to that game, as he fishes across northern Minnesota each winter, doing his best to put clients continuously on panfish, perch, and walleyes. It should come as no surprise then that underwater viewing systems are a key part of his strategy, and have been since their inception.

His camera and digital sonar approach mimics his now-famous “ice-trolling” concept of roaming select structural elements while drilling holes continuously, in an effort to both locate fish and stay on them. Few have drilled as many holes in the hardwater as Tony, and fewer yet have followed that up with as much underwater viewing as he has either.

The upshot is a 1-2 punch of underwater viewing and sonar that focuses on two main parts; the finding, and then catching, each of which utilizes different strong-suits of cameras and traditional sonar.