Humminbird 788ci for ice fishing

Wondering who has actually used the bird 788 with the ice fishing transducer. It’s kind of a pain to bring the bird out for GPS reasons and also haul out my Vexilar. Can anyone give some feedback? Thanks.

I have a H-Bird soft pack rigged for my 788ci & have only used the flasher a couple times for ice fishing. Usually take it along for GPS & as a back up for the Vex. I don’t
like the flasher colors on the Bird compared to the Vex.

I have a 597ci hd di unit and was looking into getting the ice ducer for it. I was told by HB customer service that over an extended period of time, the ice ducers will cause damage to the unit. I got this message from two separate people and neither would elaborate further. It scared me enough to stick with my vex. I asked them why they sell the ice ducer and they didn’t come up with much.

Quote:

---

I have a 597ci hd di unit and was looking into getting the ice ducer for it. I was told by HB customer service that over an extended period of time, the ice ducers will cause damage to the unit. I got this message from two separate people and neither would elaborate further. It scared me enough to stick with my vex. I asked them why they sell the ice ducer and they didn’t come up with much.

---

I talked to a HB rep that was at thorne brothers once. I have the same unit. the problem is because of the down imaging. if you had the non DI model the ice ducer would work and not cause problems. the same thing would apply to the 788’s. the same ice ducer that would go on a 597 non DI would work on the non DI version of the 788. the ice ducer is 200KHZ and the DI runs on 455KZH plus with DI the ducer needs to be moving and not stationary.