Hey everyone, if you have already hit the ice this year i hope your seasons are going well, and same to those of you yet to hit the ice!
I treated myself to one new toy this year as I got brought back on to work and this go around i got benefits with my contract... one of the neat features of the benefits package is a "lifestyle spending account" which is more liberal than any other similar account i've had in years past. This one explicitly lists fishing gear and equipment as approved... so i get $200 per year for that, and it resets and can carry over 1 year in june... My first thought was new fish finder / flasher combo unit that can create bathymetric depth contour maps... i have wanted one badly for many years now. My hope is to fully plot all the lakes up at my work up north, and my regular haunts in central and northern sask.
I was hoping to save the $400 to apply towards it, but "unfortunately" i just came across a pretty darn good deal on a unit i would typically never have considered spending as much money on, but the benefits make it easier to justify lol. Hopefully i can sell my old combo unit too. I picked up a garmin echomap UHD 95sv for something like 40-45% off. I was browsing the garmin units for a few weeks prior to coming across the deal posted on redflagdeals forums, initally looking at their 6x series units and a bit hesitant on that price range.. This 9x unit went on sale for about the same price as the 6x is regularly, with the canada garmin/navionics maps (often more expensive than US map models) included to boot. Plus a whole bunch of other neat features i am excited to try.
The unit is still on sale and in stock if anyone else is interested. They have the 7inch model as well for ~$100 less, but after researching and spending this much money on it anyways i opted to go for the bigger screen as i suspect this will (hopefully) be the only electronic i need to purchase for the next 5-10 years. It is panoptix compatible however, so maybe some day in the future if those things ever get to a reasonable price i can upgrade the transducer. If anyone gets one i have a list of parts required to make the unit portable summer & winter fishing device i could share to save some time researching.
https://www.blyacht.com/en/garmin-gps-echomap-uhd-95sv-with-gt54uhd-tm-transducer-and-canada-lakevu-g3-maps.htmlI just need to pick up and build some stuff to turn this into a portable summer fish finder and ice fishing kit. I guess come june i will have to find something else fishing related to buy!
The only other thing i currently got in the works for ice fishing this year is planning a minimum of two multi day winter tenting fishing trips at some sweet destinations. I have sort of transitioned into less overall ice fishing trips over the last few years, in favor of a few "epic trips" . Hopefully epic on the fish biting side, but regardless of that epic in the sense of adventure! It got a bit tiring to do keep up with my old style of every weekend possible doing a trip closer to home where the luck fishing was a lot more variable. I suspect i will still get the odd day tips in over the course of the winter too.
Good luck to everyone this season and stay safe!
