Hummingbird ice series flashers do not work for summer fishing

[Got A Byte?]

I recently purchased a hummingbird ice-35 flashing. I got a pretty good deal on it. It was about $25 cheaper than the Vexilar FL-8. Along with being cheaper it has many more features such as dual beam, bottom zoom and a flat and bigger display.

However I did find a flaw with it. I looked around on the web for a summer conversion kit for my boat and could not find one. So I asked hummingbird and they sent me the following information.

Quote:

Thank you for contacting Humminbird. We appreciate your interest in our products. The sonar algorithms that have been written for these products prohibits the use on open water

on a moving boat. This product is strictly designed for stationary use.

I still like my unit and I am going to keep it. My primary purpose is for ice fishing. Its just nice when it works for other uses.

Maybe they will have an update in the future who knows. But thought this was worth while information to pass on. I did not see this listed anywhere in any comparison or discussion on the Vexliar vs Hummingbird vs Marcum discussions.

Happy Fishing

[Black_Bay]

Good to know. I can scratch them off the list now.

[harvey lee]

I have been very happy with the Bird units.

I purchased my Ice 55 for ice fishing. My open water units are for open water and they also are Birds.

Even if I could use my Ice55 for open water, it does not have a GPS.

[heat checker]

Just got a 385ci combo, flasher,gps,graph,soft pack&battery, graph. Rebate for summer ducer. Should be a good all season unit. $450.

[harvey lee]

Let us know how you like the new Bird combo.

[Ed Carlson]

I recently purchased a hummingbird ice-35 flashing. I got a pretty good deal on it. It was about $25 cheaper than the Vexilar FL-8. Along with being cheaper it has many more features such as dual beam, bottom zoom and a flat and bigger display.

However I did find a flaw with it. I looked around on the web for a summer conversion kit for my boat and could not find one. So I asked hummingbird and they sent me the following information.

Yes that is a limitation for 4 season use, and one that should be taken into consideration.

Yet they did introduce the new ice-ducer system for the graphs so they can now work on the ice, that is a big plus for many graph/gps users.

I feel that is the new directional Hummingbird is headed now, away from the flasher for on the ice use, and to a completely new ice-graph system. Something new, going forwards. The 385Ci combo is a market test and a crossover unit.

Something else new is looming.

[delcecchi]

That totally bites. Adding an artificial restriction to the usage is terrible.

[Got A Byte?]

Update had to exchange my ICE-35. Went on a trip and on first use it did not work.

Exchanged for a new one, so hopefully this one works.

Not exactly sure what the problem was, but did not seem to get a signal from the transducer