Livescope Learnings

Was out fishing on this past Saturday and noticed something interesting when using livescope vs a flasher. It is not normally so easy for me to find a school of fish and just sit on them, but somehow I happened on them after only drilling a handful of holes. Thankful because I had two of my kids along and they got to reel in a bunch of fish! Wish I would have taken some pictures of my screen, but I found a school of crappies in 25 fow that were stacked in the 25 to 20 foot depth range. On the livescope screen you could pan around and see fish scattered about the 5 foot zone of water clear as day. Fished with my vexilar too and that same school of fish just looked like a 20ft bottom until you dropped down your jig. Maybe I had my gain too high, but if I would have only been fishing with my flasher, not sure I would have even dropped down a jig seeing what I saw. Also, interesting that when you fish with a flasher it makes you think there are only a handful of fish since you might only see 3 or 4 lines at a time. When in reality there are hundreds of fish in that same area. Definitely eye opening using the livescope and I have learned so much this past year since I got it.

So one of the takeaways is if you’re only using a flasher and you aren’t reading many fish, patiently keep fishing because they could be just outside your cone angle. I fish with Livescope, a flasher, and at times put a camera down during daylight. They all have strengths and weaknesses.

My son has really been liking using my Active Target. He went out 2 saturdays ago and the screen was lit up with fish. He said you could literally watch the fish swim up as he dropped his minnow and see the tail kick.
A while back he had one enormous fish swim through but it never bit. He said it looked like a lake trout, but I said no chance in Little Rock Lake LOL.

There is a lot you can learn from live.

But without live, swinging your vexilar transducer can show you if fish are near. Depending on your Vex model, I’d think you could adjust it to see the fish and true bottom, like we do in weeds, but I wasn’t there. Maybe they were that thick!! Gain, power mode, color pallets, and frequency (on the 30) all come into play.

I’m sure I could have fine tuned my vexilar a bit better and it is just the basic FL8 model. Just thought it was interesting.

The Fl8 does not have the best target separation so I doubt there would be a whole lot you could improve on with it.

Be careful, the Livescope haters will say they can read a flasher better than you and that you don’t need livescope! LOL
As AK Guy said above, all the different technologies work, just some are better than others at a given time/application.

When they make livescope as moveable as a standard flasher I’ll invest . Would be sweet to have a wireless transducer . Right now it looks rather cumbersome for hole hopping .

Its not that bad unless you get a larger unit. I have a 9 inch and yeah, it isnt anything like popping around with my lx7, but its hardly that cumbersome.

isu22andy wrote:

When they make livescope as moveable as a standard flasher I’ll invest . Would be sweet to have a wireless transducer . Right now it looks rather cumbersome for hole hopping .

Wireless transducer?

Eelpoutguy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>isu22andy wrote:</div>
When they make livescope as moveable as a standard flasher I’ll invest . Would be sweet to have a wireless transducer . Right now it looks rather cumbersome for hole hopping .

Wireless transducer?

Probably far fetched – but think how awesome livescope would be that sends info via Bluetooth or WiFi . With a battery inside the pole . I assume the speed of info exchanged isn’t fast enough to make it possible . Half the reason I haven’t invested in it cause it looks like quite the contraption to move around the boat and to the ice .

Eelpoutguy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>isu22andy wrote:</div>
When they make livescope as moveable as a standard flasher I’ll invest . Would be sweet to have a wireless transducer . Right now it looks rather cumbersome for hole hopping .

Wireless transducer?

How’s your livescope working out epg ? You find those mega crappies yet

dhpricco wrote:

I’m sure I could have fine tuned my vexilar a bit better and it is just the basic FL8 model. Just thought it was interesting.

You didn’t have it on the first on setting, for 20 feet did you? That would show the fish as bottom. If you put it to 40 feet, it should show them suspended. Something to potentially check.

Ya I had it set on the 40ft setting. I wish I would have messed with the vexilar a little more to see if I could have seen separation. Next time I run into this I will mess with it more. Might be a while since I seem to end up chasing roaming fish with the livescope more than camping over a school that is not moving.

I have my livescope either on my flip over sled or my smaller smitty wood sled. On a year like this it is pretty easy to pull around a sled hole to hole. Would be awesome if it was wireless.

Were you on a break? If you’re on a break and one side of the flasher cone is 20 feet and the other side is 25 feet it will show the bottom as 20 and you can’t see the fish in between.

I fish super sharp breaks for some species and a flasher has a lot of dead zone on the break line.

Ya it was relatively flat bottom at 25ft. Looked at the gain setting on my vexilar and it was at 3 out of 10. Probably user error/not the greatest target separation on that model vex. Mainly was just trying to note that I have probably walked right past fish in the past when just using my specific vexilar prior to having livescope. In hindsight probably should have at least dropped down a jig at each hole for any sign of life coming from the bottom.

isu22andy wrote:

When they make livescope as moveable as a standard flasher I’ll invest . Would be sweet to have a wireless transducer . Right now it looks rather cumbersome for hole hopping .

Hear me out, the new uhd2 6″ screen is Live compatable from what Ive read, Couple that with a smaller shuttle, LVS32 tranducer, and 19AH battery and your in the same size as a traditional flasher.

Planning to piece together that setup for next year and ditch my 9″ screen/48ah battery setup.

Ive learned a ton since switching to live. You can tell Fish mood, species and size in most cases.

Don’t forget about the black box weight. That thing weights 4.3lbs. I think in the future if they can get rid of that or incorporate it into the transducer or head unit it would be awesome.

ekruger01 wrote:

Hear me out, the new uhd2 6″ screen is Live compatable from what Ive read, Couple that with a smaller shuttle, LVS32 tranducer, and 19AH battery and your in the same size as a traditional flasher.

Planning to piece together that setup for next year and ditch my 9″ screen/48ah battery setup.

Ive learned a ton since switching to live. You can tell Fish mood, species and size in most cases.

You’re only going to cut around 1 pound going down to the UHD2 6″ and keep in mind the 6″ UHD2 uses 50% more battery power than the UHD1 9″ due to the wireless networking, so expect alot less runtime…Physically yes, the formfactor will be a tad bit smaller, but Livescope shuttle setups are all about weight…You’re still going to be around 18-19 pounds…

I built a LVS12 Hole Hopper setup using the original Garmin Shuttle & Bag and a 106SV head unit (no black box needed) and a 15AH battery, that weighs 15 pounds…granted its a single beam Livescope vs 3 beam, but it works great for panfish under the hole…

Those older EchoMap UHD9 units are now the best screen to use for Livescope when cutting shuttle weight is most important due to it’s low amp usage on a 9″ screen.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>isu22andy wrote:</div>
When they make livescope as moveable as a standard flasher I’ll invest . Would be sweet to have a wireless transducer . Right now it looks rather cumbersome for hole hopping .

Wireless transducer?

How about wireless lures?