Marcum lx3

Hi North Shore - I fish both the FL-18 and the LX-3 all last season and my first choice is the MarCum LX-3. Took Jeff Curry (jcfishing) out on Delta today and let him borrow my LX-3 and he is ordering one. He could not believe how close to the bottom he could see his jig.
MarCum Technologies makes the LX-3 and the adjustable zoom, target seperation, and interference rejection are the best I have seen. I owned and FL-8, Colorpoint, and the FL-18 and nothing compares to the LX-3. You will have a blast fishing with this unit. MarCum designed an absolute winner, the charging system is fantastic... No more clips and leads, autoshut off, with constant digital display with battery status. I love my LX-3!

Banditto - Did your friend double check the connections to the back of the power head? My buddy Frank had a similar situation and found that his transducer cord was loose. If it's not that I would take full advantage of that 2 year warranty he has. I ran a test thread in another site between the two units last season since I own both and to be honest with you when you compare the zoom on these two units the FL-18 and the LX-3 there is truly no comparison. The LX-3 cuts and captures in a brilliant thin line what the Fl-18 shows as gloppy and indistinguishable. To be honest with you it really is no better than my old FL-8SLT other than the colors. I thought the FL-8 was noisy when running, well the FL-18 is worse. Every one that has borrowed my LX-3 and fished with it loves it. If you want detail in the strikezone the LX-3 has it and then some.

I want to thank Scottyhoover and Chad1 for welcoming me to the site. I won a Bluegill tournament in Michigan, Wow 3 years ago on Wamplers. Nice people at Jerry's and Knutsons. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip even with gettting sick 2 years in a row it's a great place to visit.

You know, to be honest I am not certain that we did check the transducer connection. All I asked him is if he ever dropped his transducer by accident because I know they are really fragile.

Anyway the test run was in deep water too. We both used really tiny tear drops. My FL18 can watch a tear drop fall and bounce inches off the bottom, tested down to 96ft of water. His lost resolution at some point and it was hard to find the tear drop. Then his would not see the bottom bounce sometimes too.

I would like to see how the Marcum does through clear ice at checking water depths, etc.

Banditto - With these $400 units we try as best we can to care for them and when a mishap happens like last year coming off the lake you cringe... While loading my LX-3 in to the van the transducer fell out of my unsecured softpack and bounced on the asphalt face first about a 24" drop. I was so p.o. I thought it was ruined. Even with a couple of chips in the ceramic face it still works like new. I got lucky.
You really have to care for the Vexilar transducers as they are far more sensitive than the MarCums hence the lower power output on the Vex 400 watts. The MarCum has more power 1500 watts and a less sensitive receiver.
That's one thing I never through at it in my tests and that's water over 40'. Most water I fish are shallow basin type lakes. I have used the LX-3 and FL-18 to check depths through clear ice and they both work great.

Tim, actually that is one gripe I have with my Vex. It really isn't reliable for checking depths through ice, even clear ice. I am gonna try again but I have tried it through the ice, then cut a hole and the reading is way out.

I know how sensitive transducers can be... I work with transducers that cost anywhere from $1500 to $15000 each...

Banditto - Did you make sure the zoom was off prior to checking the depth? As you probably know you have to have water contact with the ducer on the ice to check it? Also remember you have to subtract the amount of ice that's on top as well.
One of the features I do not like about the zoom on the FL-18 is when I hole hop when fishing gills and crappies I have to switch back to Normal or LP mode and then to zoom each time you move holes to stay in zoom. The MarCum LX-3 you set once and you can hop with no further adjusting, excellent feature for shallow water.
I found a buyer for my FL-18 for $350 so I will probably un load it and get another LX-3 that way I have two so that if someone wan'ts to borrow it I have back up. So far three people have used my LX-3 and have purchased one right after. They could not believe the detail on the screen. Two were previous FL-8 users. It's been fantastic.
How's the ice up your way? Should be great after this cold blast were getting. I have been out 6 times thus far this season and 3 times had to drive 120 mi. north to get to it. It's a nice 13 degrees here right now.

Tim, as technical a person as I "should" be, I think I forgot that part of the instruction manual. Thanks for the tip. I will try it again.

Hate to brag, but we have had 6" of ice on the lake where my cottage is for maybe 5 weeks... I can't explain why that is either because 20 miles south and they have open water, and 20 minutes north and they have open water. Even 1/4 miles north there is another lake and the ice isn't that great.

But where I fish there is excellent ice. It is as if something FINALLY goes right for a change, like an angel is watching my fishing progress.

OOOps I screwed up posting this Greg I accidently started a new thread here it is...
North Shore - I'll be running those two new MarCum LX-3's over to your house at 6 p.m.... I got an order for two more, there selling like hot cakes. Sorry bout the wait. Now you have the best 3 color flasher on the market bar none. Congratulations... Post here how you like/dislike it... You got a great deal! See ya in a little while.