A wise angler once said 90 percent of the fish are often found in 10 percent of the water. To find these spots, many of us rely heavily on modern graph style sonar units that reveal an amazing representation of what’s below. Unfortunately, many of us are missing out on the benefits offered by a flash from the past.

Traditional flasher-style sonar units are making a big comeback in the fishing industry. Using a rotating wheel or dial that displays bottom and other targets (fish, brush, etc.) as a series of multi-colored lights. Flashers, unlike other fish finders, work in real time, meaning that what you see on the display is exactly what’s under the transducer.

In contrast, graph-type fish finders display an actual image of what the sonar’s transducer has just passed over. This image will scroll across the screen, usually from right to left, constantly updating as it runs. Unfortunately, the image you are seeing in the center of your sonar was what happened seconds ago and is now more than likely somewhere behind the boat.

If you’ve ever used a flasher unit while ice fishing, you’ll understand just how beneficial the instant feedback can be. Using these units, I can precisely see the depths fish are holding at and literally watch my jig/bait fall down through the water column until reaching them. This puts me right into heart of the action. Once there, I can physically watch to see how the fish react to my bait.

This same technology in a boat would be indispensable for locating structure, fish, baitfish, weedbeds and bottom composition. Imagine having instant feedback on what’s below as you anchor up or drift over structure while vertical jigging for crappies or walleyes, locate structure to mark with a buoy for bass fishing, or while using a trolling motor and casting to different spots.

In addition, learning to operate even the simplest graph-type sonar can be often be complicated, since they offer a very wide variety of settings that must be adjusted to get the most benefit. Most flashers are very simple to operate with only two dials, one to adjust the sensitivity (gain) and another to set the depth range.

Flashers also have an edge on graphs in other ways. How many times have you gone into a shallow area and your graph starting giving false readings? Many of these type units don’t operate well in less than five feet of water. With a simple adjustment on the gain dial of your flasher you will still get very accurate readings in even the shallowest depths.

There’s one more important reason to consider employing a flasher sonar unit into your fishing arsenal. When running your boat at higher speeds, the vast majority of graphs can not keep up and tend to either start blinking or give readings at points that are now 25 or more yards behind the boat. For reasons unknown to me, a flasher does not have this problem.

Imagine heading to a lake you’re unfamiliar with. You get in your boat, pull away from the dock and accelerate toward deeper water. As you took off, your boat was in 20-30 feet of water with no obstructions.

As you gain speed though your graph goes on the blink and you unknowingly come up on a shallow reef or shelf and damage your prop, or worse yet, your lower unit. A flasher could have alerted you to the depth change and thus avoided expensive repairs.

Thanks to the popularity of ice fishing in the northern states, many companies such as Vexilar, MarCum, and Hummingbird have made some outstanding technological advances in flasher units. Their capabilities have not gone unnoticed by anglers in boats. A large percentage of professional bass and walleye anglers are now using them and many will tell you if they could only have one sonar unit, it would be a flasher.

People tend to be very visually oriented and marine sonar companies seem to capitalize on this by mainly offering visually appealing graph-style sonar units. Unfortunately, these units have limitations that can easily be overcome by switching to or augmenting your current set-up with a traditional flasher.