Weeds are well-known fish-holding areas during the open-water season, but they can also be prime targets to hold fish in winter. The biggest thing is learning how to catch the fish using your flasher, and knowing when they are in or near the weeds.

Most flashers will show the weed area as a heavier line. With my Vexilar FLX28 or 30 set as a normal unit, and using the 3-color setting, thick weed cover looks like a large red area at the bottom flasher reading, which sometimes has a few breaks or yellow, orange and green flashes mixed in.

If I use the unit in the normal mode, I can tell if there are fish hidden in the weeds by dropping the jig near the top, or down into the weeds. Holding to the spot where I can see the green flash of my jig at the very top of the weeds, two things happen when a fish appears. One is that another green flash appears, which is most likely a weaker signal of a fish from the side. This most likely means that fish are holding at the tops of the weeds. The other thing that can happen, if fish are buried in the weeds, is that the red area will look as if it is shaking, and some yellow/orange starts moving around, which are fish moving through the weeds to hopefully grab the jig.

Still in the normal mode, if the jig is dropped into the weeds, down to the bottom until the line starts going slack, and then jigged back up to about a foot above the weeds, some fish activity may be seen. I’ve had this happen a lot, which shows me the fish are within the weeds, and chasing the bait upwards.

At this point, switch the Vexilar to the low-power mode to eliminate most of the weeds. In low-power setting, the jig is normally still seen, but is sometimes lost. However, fish movement is usually picked up within the weeds.

When in low power, it is best to use the manual depth setting rather than automatic. In fact, when fishing shallower weeds, which are normally found in my fishing, I switch to the 10-foot range on a manual setting. If fishing slightly deeper, I will use both manual and auto, depending on what is taking place on depth change.

The FLX28 has several color settings and can use up to five. However, I’ve always used the 3 colors on the older models and prefer to use that setting on the FLX28. Also, for people who have only that sort of color display, it is easier to relate to them how to fish with such units by leaving mine in that color mode.

So far, I’ve talked about fishing directly over the weeds, but there is also the situation of fishing outer weed edges, again, just like in the open-water season. This is often where an extra green flash will be seen above the weeds. Depending on if the unit is on the very edge, slightly inside the edge, or clearly away from the edge of the weeds, this will determine as to how thick the red area appears, and how the fish will be seen. Anything caught on the outer edge of the transducer’s signal will act as if the unit is setting directly above the weeds, but the target flashes will be seen more easily.

A lot of times, if I have found weeds on the flasher or seen them through clear ice (sometimes still frozen at the surface), and fish are more active near the outer edge, I will drill holes out further until I find the area where the bottom changes, and the weed line is within inches of the transducer’s angle. At this point, I switch to normal power and auto depth, so that it is easier to adjust the Pro-View Ice-Ducer and find fish targets. With this sort of transducer, changing the gain is also changing the cone angle from narrow to wide, and in many cases, I will use it in the lower gain settings to get more pinpoint accuracy. Since this is most likely a deeper area, the zoom feature can be used if fish are closer to the bottom.

The next time you are fishing weeds during ice fishing season, try some of the things I’ve mentioned in this article. Any flasher will work, especially if it has at least a 3- or 4-color display, but a unit with the features like those found on the Vexilar’s FLX series of flashers is a tremendous advantage.

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