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Go Livescope if you intend to make the move. Well worth the upgrade.
Worth is a matter of personal preference....but if you have the cash lying around they are fun to use!
Kayl, how did you mount the transducer on your kayak? I have the ice bundle and want to use it on my kayak also.
Every toy is a money pit that's hard to justify, I like toys.
Wife wants to replace my LX5 and get us the panoptix. I'm so used to the lx5 I'm just not sure. It's deffiently a different machine. Just wish I could find more on ice videos with it.
100% agree. It's funny to read folks grouse about this or that being too expensive when really, it is just to expensive for them to justify and worth is totally personal preference
Hi All,My group of ice guys has fished these last 5 winters with the LX6, LX7 and LX9.We didn't get onto the Garmin Panoptix till late last winter and bog was it a game changer in searching a new spot to confirm if fishies were around or not or where.Let put it this way, if we had to search a new area the size of 2 football fields that none of us had been on before. With the traditional 7 to 20 degree sonar cones over 28ft to 35ft of water. we would have easily had to drill 1 hole every 10 yard X 6 lines of holes X 2 football field areas.... That's a total of 10 x 6 x 2 = 120 holes!!!!!!!Imagine the time and the manpower need just to drill these 120 holes we haven't even got into drop our ducers in the water a looking at our sonar screens yets. This would have completely consumed 4 hours in total.......We'll we actually cover an area that was 7 to 8 football field area. We covered it with 4 guys in total, 2 using the Ion auger and 2 using the Pan Optix. This area a search successfully in about only 3 hours.Yes the Pan Optix ice unit is very $$$$$$$, but I would rather bite that bullet and have actually more time to search for new areas or go back to find fishing quicker on my Honey Holes.But I have to add a word of fairness, Pan optix still hasn't been able to beat my Marcum and defined vertical fishing, the Marcum still shows me more defined details when zoomed in on the screen and has the fastest screen refresh to what really happening under the ice......Tight Lines to ALL!!!!
That’s why the ice bundle still comes with the standard ice transducer.
Here's another video that just came out today...I can't wait to get out!
I just spent a day wandering around the St. Paul Ice Fishing Show. The floor was full of various "Ice Castles" which are RV trailers made specifically to pull out on the lake and fish through your living room floor. Kitchens, toilets, showers, beds, televisions...all for only $20,000-$40,000. I didn't get it until I realized that it is actually a very inexpensive cabin with direct lake access and no taxes.In any case there apparently is a big market for such things and in light of that, a measly $3K for the best fish finder in the world seems VERY reasonable.
Panoptix wise...its only as impressive as the angler using it. The biggest upside we've found is with laker jigging. There is some benefit to seeing the laker come in from the side. Especially in situations where they are suspended.