Entry level flasher?

[hnd]

I wasn't thinking so much has fishing in 3' of water. More along the lines that your fishing a 7-8ft deep lake with 2ft of ice. So your fishing in 5ft of water......with the 3ft blind spot on top......you can only read the bottom 2ft. So if a crappie comes in suspended you can't see it. We have a few prarrie lakes like that around here.

like i said, you've got quite a blind spot with most other products as well in that scenario if you are hanging your ducer below the ice.  but in that scenario with any product with 2' of ice the answer is always to hang your ducer just below the water line.

we have a shallow canal that tops out at 5'.  with a foot of ice, you've got 4' of water column.   my buddy and i fish it easily with an lx6 with no issues.  having not fished it with birds, i can't say but with vexilars, mechanical marcums, and the lx6/7, i can't say i see much difference even hanging it below the shallow ice. 

[matzilla]

i catch crappies in the top 3' of the water column all the time - they'll cruise through and pin baitfish into that area just under the ice. You see marks run through, reel up and get a killer up bite

On a hb graph unit you just adjust the surface clutter setting to clear up the returns in that range if some noise is present

[Seamonkey84]

Bingo...

Even with a 20 degree cone, at 3ft down its only seeing an area about 1ft in diameter. For anything to show up, it would have to be sitting directly under your hole. If they right under the ice like that, not much besides panoptix or holding your transducer sideways can pick them up. Just sight fish when it’s like that. I have to do that when fishing for brookie trout in the shallows.

[matzilla]

its a situation that lasts about 2 minutes, twice an hour if you're lucky - fishing backwaters so sight fishing isn't an option

[Spider1]

wow, you guys are making mountains outta mole hills. Whatever flasher or finder the guy gets will be better than nothing. I use my ice-45 in water that is as shallow as 5 ft give or take but as seamonkey pointed out, you aren't going to see anything until it's nose is right up on your jig. In that situation, fishing very shallow, I tend to pull my 'ducer and site fish.

As for the op's question. Get either a Humminbird ice-35, a Marcum M1 or a Vex FL-18. If you look at the Vex website, you can find reconditioned flashers at a better price (and that would be the direction that I would lean, a recon Vex-18). JMHO