Anyone use a PiranhaMax fish finder on the ice?

[krazjon]

Ive searched a bit but couldn't find any good info.

I bought a cheap humminbird piranhamax 175 from walmart for kayak fishing and wondered if anyone uses one for Ice fishing?
I really don't have the money to go out and buy a $300 purpose built unit.
I have already rigged the PiranhaMax to run off a cigarette lighter (usually have a booster pack, but have an outlet on the ATV) and can easily refit a tip up to mount the transducer to.

Just curious if it is worth the trouble or if they're crap on the ice.
Thanks

[orange pants]

Using my 190c on the ice this year. I bought the ice transducer for it and it works well. Turn the sensitivity up and I can see even small teardrop jigs on it. If you get the ice transducer when you turn it on it will go to simulator mode. Push the left arrow by the menu button , it will say start up, then press the menu button and it will work. You need to do this if your unit has temperature on it. If your unit doesn't display temperature it should work without doing this.

[krazjon]

ill have to look and see if mine has sensitivity or not. Ill definitely look for an ice transducer. Thanks

[spcsports]

I bought 1 at Scheels on sale. Didn't come with an ice duce and never got it to work on ice. Sold it on Craigslist.

[orange pants]

They don't come with an ice transducer. You have to buy that extra. Costs about $78 on amazon. Still cheaper than a new ice flasher. You have to make sure the transducer is either in the vwater in the hole or it will shoot through the ice, but you have to have the bottom of the transducer in water on top of the ice. This is true with any fishfinder. I just drill about a 1/2" hole in the ice, pour a little water in it and put the transducer in the water in the hole. It will work this way until you find where you want to drill to fish.

[JJBat150]

I have a PiranhaMax 176i, which is basically the same thing except with GPS.

No problems with it seeing a 1 oz jig in 170 FOW when targeting lakers.

This is how I use the boat transducer that was included with it.  Just a couple pieces of 3-quarter inch PVC I had laying around.  Drilled a bunch of holes in it to adjust height so the transducer is below the ice.

[matzilla]

I used one for a few seasons...just upgraded to a Helix 5

I still use the skimmer that comes with the PMax 175 setup like this


Here it is fishing


I kept the fish id on 50% of the time since the unit doesn't show depth lines. If you hang the transducer 2' away from the hole you're jigging it will pick up your jig if you're over 10 fow +. That why its kind of a waste to build a rig to hold the transducer, the 200khz beam is plenty wide to use even if it isn't sitting exactly level or exactly above your line.

Since the 175 is a grayscale screen, keep the backlight on to warm the screen up. It will slow down in extreme cold but its not very bad like the olllllllld dot matrix screens. Set the scroll speed to fastest and adjust the sensitivity so you can see your jig. The 175 never let me down and caught a ton of fish! A color graph will give you better detail in whats actually going on under the water. The 175 was a little hard to use in heavy brush with lots of fish staged in it - a color graph will clearly show you the fish moving in that brush. Even though the 175 doesn't have a RTS window, the marks are realtime.

Make SURE you turn off the auto max depth - increasing the depth range will effectively increase the "gain" like a flasher. The higher the depth range, the slower the ping speed of the transducer. If you want to penetrate brush or weeds, crank the depth range, if you want greater details and a faster return set the depth range a few feet beyond your actual depth.

Use the zoom features!

You can check the voltage of your battery by bringing up the status screen.

[krazjon]

Very awesome. Thanks for the replies. I will definitely be testing it out soon then. I like the idea of the PVC with multiple depth holes. I was going to buy a tip up from craigslist but I always worry they're stolen as the last time I bought gear it had some other dudes name on them. (decided not to buy after that)

WISH I could go out today since its so damn nice out but work calls

Thanks again. I am definitely stoked to test mine out.
Looks like Ill have to study the unit and learn the zoom and sensitivity type functions.

[RapShack]

They don't come with an ice transducer. You have to buy that extra. Costs about $78 on amazon.

Yea, no.  There is no iceducer for the 175.  IMO it works great for the price, and it's really easy to use since it's so basic. I wouldn't waste the time building some sort of rig to hold the transducer.  I just have it rigged to hang level and made a float out of some pipe insulation I got for 99 cents.

[krazjon]

I looked but couldn't find an ice ducer. figured ppl knew one that worked but wasn't specifically for it. either way i doubt id spend the money, I'm going to try just the stock setup and maybe upgrade to a fancy purpose built unit over the summer 

[orange pants]

I called Hummingbird when I wanted one for my 190c. They told me to get the XI 9 20. It works fine , you just have to go to start up each time you turn it on. I'm sure the transducer that comes with the unit works just as well if you figure out how you want to hang it in the hole. My original one is on the back of my boat, that's wqhy I bought the ice transducer.

[RapShack]

Yea that's for the 190 which runs a single beam 20 deg. transducer.  The 175 is dual bean 16/28 deg. 

[matzilla]

you select 200khz in the beam select menu to use the ice ducer with a 175...you wont get the 455khz beam, however.