I think the Marcum vs. vex debate is more like a Ford F-250 Super Duty 7.3 diesel, chrome stacks, trucker girl mud flaps with a 12 inch lift and 44 inch super swampers vs. puke green aqua Geo Metro. You will always have the few guys that would prefer the geo metro over the f-250 but everyone knows that those guys aren't quite right if you know what I mean.

They are all I use for panfish. Made the switch from schooleys to fly style reels 2 years ago. I have the a few of the new model and old model frabill 101 reels and a couple genz straight line. Im looking to add a few standard black betty and 6061 next season. Also would like to get a few of the new eagle claw straight lines. I have heard nothing but great thing about how smooth they are. One of the biggest things I learned is to fill your spool completely. The more line you have on the spool the more line you will will retrieve each turn. Instead of wasting a huge amount of good expensive line I save all of my old line that I took from respooling other reels and use it as backing. Make sure you put plenty of good fresh line on so you wont have to depend on that old line when a big slab starts ripping line. Ive tried fly line as backing and it didnt work to wel. My 1 and 2 lb. mono would catch in the gaps in the fly line and I lost a few good fish when the mono got hung up and snapped. Kind of like on the schoolys when you would have the stopper pin in and a big fish would peel line and you couldnt get the pin out in time. I normally only use my straight lines for panfish jigs. If Im using spoons I use my HT 6bb accucast spinning reels. I use 4 or 6 lb. vicious mono with a 1-6 lb. floro leader depending on conditions. When fishing spoons im not to worried about line twist. I tend to get bigger bycatch fish when fishing spoons so its nice to have that heavier line and faster retrieve to pull in those whiskered walleye and carp. I will never drop a jig on anything but a straight line rig though.

While im thing of the HT spinning reels I want to highly recommend them to you all. HT has a bad rap for producing super cheap chinese junk that fails quickly. The 6bb accucast are awesome though. For 16-18.00 you can not beat them. I have taken them to hell and back for 3 seasons now and they work just as well now as they did when I bought them. The drags are super smooth on them and I think they are better then the much more expensive Pflueger President reels I have. I love how the reel is angled toward the rod instead of being straight with the rod. It really helps out on ice rods with the first guide being closer to the reel then on a long rod. I have 6 of these reels and they all preform flawlessly. If your in the market for new spinning reels I would recommend you check them out. You can buy a few of these for the price of 1 high end priced reel.

I agree with g. The 2 most important things are a flasher and a gps. The flasher to find the fish and a gps to mark the spot so you can go back and catch them again. The gps makes it easy to get back on the fish fast when you have already found them. Its a lot easier then lining up with a crooked tree on 1 bank and a rock on the other bank. I could never seem to find that same tree and rock to line up with the get back on the same spot.

I'm a spoon guy. I catch more fish on spoons then anything else. My secret spoon is one that I make and have dubbed the Smitty Spoon. You can't tell from the pic but the lower part of the spoon is cupped and the top has a slight bend. The spoon itself is 1 inch long minus the split ring and hook. It has 2 small chrome flippers  on the split ring with the hook. I make them with treble hooks or single hook. It depends on how the fish are biting on which I use. I normally use the treble with live red and white maggots or the single with out bait or plastics. I normally fish them in 20 ft. or less water as they are a lighter weight spoon. The action is awesome and they flutter like crazy on the way down and dance like crazy with a short fast jigging strokes. I also make about 20 different styles of horizontal panfish jigs that I fish with my plastics that fish very well but if I had to go out with 1 rod and 1 lure it would be this spoon

I agree with you Banker. Vicious is by far the best line around. Ive used all the different lines on the market and the Vicious has out preformed all of them hands down. I run it on all of my hard and soft water reels. I love how it feels. It is extremely low memory and lays out nice and straight which is very important when fishing light weight panfish jigs. The last thing you want is your line to be coiled when you go to set the hook and when your line is coiled it cuts down on how much your jig dances when jigging. It has some line stretch but not to much. When your catching larger fish on 1 and 2 lb test I think the line stretch helps keep the line from snapping to fast. If any of you are not happy how your current line is preforming I dont think you will be disapointed if you try Vicious Panfish line.

They are calling for almost 1 inch of rain total tomorrow.At least the ice that is there is clear ice. After Thursday is supposed to be below freezing for a week

That is a horrible picture. Please take it down. lol. Nobody wants to see my ugly mug on here. That being said it was very nice getting out and fishing with you. Thanks again for the call and hopefully the ice will stay for a few days.

Thats what I like about the new Marcums (LX-7 and LX-9). You can chose between flasher dial, showdown vertical display or graph mode. You can run multiple displays at the same time as well. I like to have both the flasher dial on the right and graph mode on the left of the split screen. I dont know how many times Ive looked away for a few seconds and when I looked back there were no marks on the dial or showdown display but the graph showed a mark came through when I looked away. I also like to split the screen between the graph on the left and 2 showdown displays on the right. Ill have 1 of the vertical displays showing the full water column and the other being in zoom mode. Either being zoomed in on the bottom or zoomed in up in the column where schools of fish have been coming through. I didnt think I would like the graph mode because the only graphs I have used was open water. The graph on the 7 and 9 shows my real small panfish jigs very well. I have either used or been around all the different units on the ice at one time or another and I think the new Marcums are by far the best unit on the market right now. Having the choice between which style display at anytime you want is really nice. The only thing else I would like to see on the unit is GPS. I would never use it to get me to my spot but would be nice when Im at my spot to plan out where im moving to next. I would much rather use my delorme handheld gps hanging around my neck when moving from spot to spot then carry a heavy flasher in front of me when dragging my sled around. But no matter what brand flasher you have you are better off then not having any. It would be hard for me to go back to the old days of fishing without. I have had trips out when I was over a half hr. from home and realized I forgot my flasher and turned around to go and get it and just be late getting on the ice. I could leave my wallet or cell phone at home and not go back for it but no way am I going out with out my flasher. lol