Does livescope make a difference?

[RUGER]

I have learned more about fish this year than I have the rest of my entire life.
Watched a small school of crappie absolutely scatter like a covey of quail yesterday.
My buddy went to step down into the bottom of the boat and kinda tripped.
He hit about twice as hard as you normally would.
They were about 8' deep and 10' from the boat and they were GONE!
Another time I bumped my trolling motor on just to adjust my position a little bit. It was on the lowest speed and BOOM they exploded out of there.
Anyway....

We went fishing yesterday.
Talked to a guy this morning that I saw out there and asked him how they did.
Him and his wife went. His wife didn't catch anything and he caught one small bass and a chain pickerel.
He said he talked to an elderly couple that had not gotten one single bite.
Another couple said they had caught 3 crappie all day.
I did notice that I only saw one person catch a fish while we were there.
Granted I was staring at the screen most of the time.

My buddy and I caught 33 crappie in about 3 hours.
Granted we only had 5 keepers but it sure was fun.
I still consider myself the worlds worst crappie fisherman but game changer is putting it mildly with this thing.

It just amazes me you can look around and absolutely know whether fish are there or not.
It absolutely will not make them bite for sure. Had SEVERAL fish swim up to my bait and turn away.
Should have probably tried different colors but I wasn't that tore up about it.

Just wanted to share as @gasman says it's cheating and more and more I am learning, it honestly is almost.
I am still yet to use it bass fishing but it won't be long.

 

[Spurhunter]

I still consider myself the worlds worst crappie fisherman

Even worse than @gasman ???

 

[gasman]

No different than using a trail cam over a pile of corn

 

[RUGER]

Even worse than @gasman ???

Definitely ! LOL

 

[Pilchard]

That's cool, RUGER! I've never seen the livescope in person but seen it on YouTube and it looks addicting. Almost like a video game where the fish are real.

Observing fish behavior when you can't actually see them in the water is an amazing thought. I was lucky enough to fish crystal clear water on most days previously and it's amazing what you can learn just by watching. It really makes you think twice about shutting a hatch loudly or tossing something down on the deck instead of carefully placing it.

 

[RUGER]

That's cool, RUGER! I've never seen the livescope in person but seen it on YouTube and it looks addicting. Almost like a video game where the fish are real.

Observing fish behavior when you can't actually see them in the water is an amazing thought. I was lucky enough to fish crystal clear water on most days previously and it's amazing what you can learn just by watching. It really makes you think twice about shutting a hatch loudly or tossing something down on the deck instead of carefully placing it.

Something else that is really neat, to me, is when I turn a fish loose I like watching what it does. 99% of the time they haul butt, straight to the bottom.

 

[Mud Creek]

Probably gonna catch some heat for this. Hopefully it comes across the right way. I think live scope and all the like are awesome in theory but I'm about to the point I just want to see them gone and wish they were never invented. I dont want to offend anybody but I'm over the "it makes fishing like a video game" crowd. People that normally couldn't catch them are now having a ton of success and I just feel like at some point they're going to be a downfall to crappie fishing.

I'm not saying crappie will be extinct but it just feels like its headed in the direction of people who post videos hunting public land and it doesn't take long before people catch on and your spot just ain't as good as it use to be. Technology makes life better/easy/convenient but it's also ruined a lot.

I don't know, not trying to be on a rant but from what I've seen and heard about them I've just totally changed my stance and pretty much hate them lol. In the right hands they could be an awesome tool and the older crowd using them doesn't bother me as much as the youngsters who don't/won't know any other kind of fishing than live scope. I guess in 10 years there will be a bait you buy and download a app to your phone and it will cast itself down to where fish are lol.

 

[RUGER]

@Mud Creek I understand what you are saying and trust me I hear it plenty from the haters @gasman and @Deer Assassin LOL

I have fished all my life, I mean like from my earliest memories.
I am living proof it makes it easier to catch crappie.

In about another 2 or 3 weeks I will switch gears to my bream fishing in earnest.
I was talking to my buddy yesterday and he asked if I will ever use my other depth finder again. I told him when I start searching for bream beds and primarily bream fishing I will probably never turn the livescope on.
I can find beds with my sidescan and I like it better than the live scope in perspective mode.

I also still just "fish" and use it to just kinda look around every once in a while, mostly searching for structure that I didn't know was there.

All that said, yeah I'm gonna put the hammer on them every chance I get.

 

[WTM]

i guess i tend to disagree. passed over the bridge this morning and everybody but one boat was spider rigging with short rods. the two that were catching fish were casting floats to stake beds.

take my older brother for instance, he called me last week half bragging and half wanting some info. told me he had two livecopes up front, blah blah blah. he said ive figured out if they are going to bite or not, if their tails aint flicking i leave. after all these years he still hasnt learned casting angles and reeling up to make them bite, even with livescope, although he has learned the 30 foot rule.

then take into account the cost of livescope, your average fisherman and working family man is not going to plop down the cash for one no matter how good it is.

it might hurt smaller lakes but lakes like KY are just too big to catch all the crappie. KY lake has a 60% dominance in blacks but most folks only catch a lot of whites. why? because they keep fishing the same techniques they have for years chasing whites that wont work for blacks. i dont think livescope will help those folks tremendously.

 

[TNGunsmoke]

I doubt I'll ever buy one, not just because of the expense, it just seems to me that after a while, you'd get so involved in watching the danged thing, you'd miss other things going on by looking up. I'd just as soon not be watching a screen to catch fish instead of talking to the folks in the boat with me, observing the birds flying, watching out for the wake that's about to hit the boat from the jet skiing idiots, dodging the log that's just floating along right at the surface waiting to knock your lower unit off.....

It also seems like it'd take a lot of the fun out of catching a mess. But that's just me I guess.

 

[Mud Creek]

then take into account the cost of livescope, your average fisherman and working family man is not going to plop down the cash for one no matter how good it is.

They could've fooled me lol must be a lot of divorces in my area because seems about everyone has them lol. I'll also add that 90% of the ones we see my buddy labels "try hards not die hards". They have all the bells and whistles and either (1)Not very good at using them or (2)they couldn't catch nary a crappie if not for them. Again I say every single crappie won't be caught but it will affect it negatively in the years to come JMHO. I won't be mad if I'm wrong.

I told a buddy of mine last week during this same conversation that if live scope isn't going any where then a man might as well get one but I think fisherman and crappie would be better off without them. Again JMO. I just have this bad feeling that this is the start of something bad. Where do we go from here? I'm not dumb enough to think that everyone is going to say well this is as good as it gets no need to improve it. Years ago all you could do on a cell phone was make and recieve calls now look at what we do with them. Handy as they are they've dumbed a lot of people down, made people lazy, etc.

They are cool as all get out just feels like they're trying to make it catching not fishing. Id rather roll into a spot and not catch crap wondering if its gonna happen any second than sit there watching fish on a screen not take the bait lol.

I don't think it will mess with numbers but might compare it to ducks, turkeys, or deer that are pressured day after day. Eventually they get smarter and quit doing what gets them killed. It's a game changer for sure but still too early to say its for the better for me.

 

[bluball]

They could've fooled me lol must be a lot of divorces in my area because seems about everyone has them lol. I'll also add that 90% of the ones we see my buddy labels "try hards not die hards". They have all the bells and whistles and either (1)Not very good at using them or (2)they couldn't catch nary a crappie if not for them. Again I say every single crappie won't be caught but it will affect it negatively in the years to come JMHO. I won't be mad if I'm wrong.

I told a buddy of mine last week during this same conversation that if live scope isn't going any where then a man might as well get one but I think fisherman and crappie would be better off without them. Again JMO. I just have this bad feeling that this is the start of something bad. Where do we go from here? I'm not dumb enough to think that everyone is going to say well this is as good as it gets no need to improve it. Years ago all you could do on a cell phone was make and recieve calls now look at what we do with them. Handy as they are they've dumbed a lot of people down, made people lazy, etc.

They are cool as all get out just feels like they're trying to make it catching not fishing. Id rather roll into a spot and not catch crap wondering if its gonna happen any second than sit there watching fish on a screen not take the bait lol.

I don't think it will mess with numbers but might compare it to ducks, turkeys, or deer that are pressured day after day. Eventually they get smarter and quit doing what gets them killed. It's a game changer for sure but still too early to say its for the better for me.

Yep agree,everyone has them or are buying them

 

[Mud Creek]

@Mud Creek I understand what you are saying and trust me I hear it plenty from the haters @gasman and @Deer Assassin LOL

I have fished all my life, I mean like from my earliest memories.
I am living proof it makes it easier to catch crappie.

In about another 2 or 3 weeks I will switch gears to my bream fishing in earnest.
I was talking to my buddy yesterday and he asked if I will ever use my other depth finder again. I told him when I start searching for bream beds and primarily bream fishing I will probably never turn the livescope on.
I can find beds with my sidescan and I like it better than the live scope in perspective mode.

I also still just "fish" and use it to just kinda look around every once in a while, mostly searching for structure that I didn't know was there.

All that said, yeah I'm gonna put the hammer on them every chance I get.

No doubt!

 

[bluball]

I have learned more about fish this year than I have the rest of my entire life.
Watched a small school of crappie absolutely scatter like a covey of quail yesterday.
My buddy went to step down into the bottom of the boat and kinda tripped.
He hit about twice as hard as you normally would.
They were about 8' deep and 10' from the boat and they were GONE!
Another time I bumped my trolling motor on just to adjust my position a little bit. It was on the lowest speed and BOOM they exploded out of there.
Anyway....

We went fishing yesterday.
Talked to a guy this morning that I saw out there and asked him how they did.
Him and his wife went. His wife didn't catch anything and he caught one small bass and a chain pickerel.
He said he talked to an elderly couple that had not gotten one single bite.
Another couple said they had caught 3 crappie all day.
I did notice that I only saw one person catch a fish while we were there.
Granted I was staring at the screen most of the time.

My buddy and I caught 33 crappie in about 3 hours.
Granted we only had 5 keepers but it sure was fun.
I still consider myself the worlds worst crappie fisherman but game changer is putting it mildly with this thing.

It just amazes me you can look around and absolutely know whether fish are there or not.
It absolutely will not make them bite for sure. Had SEVERAL fish swim up to my bait and turn away.
Should have probably tried different colors but I wasn't that tore up about it.

Just wanted to share as @gasman says it's cheating and more and more I am learning, it honestly is almost.
I am still yet to use it bass fishing but it

The big thing going with the livescopers are trolling motors on the back with a stomp switch.When you get to close to the fish just hit your stomp button and slow the boat down or backup.In the one pic its just the brackets for a trolling motor,dont have a pic of them after install.My buddy at performance fishing electronics has been putting them ona bunch of boats here lately.I ordered some for my boat but will probally be summer before i get them on,been busy and have started helping my buddy wire a few boats also.

 

[WTM]

The big thing going with the livescopers are trolling motors on the back with a stomp switch.When you get to close to the fish just hit your stomp button and slow the boat down or backup.In the one pic its just the brackets for a trolling motor,dont have a pic of them after install.My buddy at performance fishing electronics has been putting them ona bunch of boats here lately.I ordered some for my boat but will probally be summer before i get them on,been busy and have started helping my buddy wire a few boats also.

lol, crappie will spook from the xducer ping, would live to have an aqua vu set up to see what they would do when those are deployed.

 

[bluball]

lol, crappie will spook from the xducer ping, would live to have an aqua vu set up to see what they would do when those are deployed.

Without them you can see the fish run from the trolling motor wash.They make a world of difference,i have saw it first hand and it works.Aqua view wouldnt do you much good on kylake it has too much color,have a coiple friends that have tried them lol.

 

[WTM]

Yep agree,everyone has them or are buying them

if that were true then everyone on here would have them. id dare to say the majority of the crappie fishermen are still traditional spring season fishermen.

 

[Crow Terminator]

Mud Creek -- I have had Livescope on my boat for about a month now and fish about 3x a week. I'm still learning it but I can tell you that a lot of your worries about it can be put to bed. Just because more people have it on their boat, don't mean they can make fish bite. It also doesn't ID the fish either, although after a while you might get better at what you are seeing. The beam on it is very narrow...so narrow that casting just a few inches to the left or right of it, means all the difference in seeing your jig/bait and not seeing it. You have to nearly have perfect boat control to get a great image and to be able to sit there and cast to it while watching the screen. Be it a brush pile, stump, etc. And if it is a moving school, you are constantly having to swivel your mount to look for where they went (again, the narrow cone thing makes this a little tricky). If you have a spot lock trolling motor, that takes care of SOME of the boat control but then you will need a pole mount for the Livescope transducer, or other wise it will be moving everywhere if it is mounted to the trolling motor shaft while in spot lock. I can honestly say I've not caught a fish with it yet that I wouldn't have caught without having it. I tend to waste more time trying to figure out what species the fish are that I'm seeing on the graph. I had some that I was convinced were crappie or white bass...they were bigger fish than what I had been seeing and a lot of them. I fooled with them for the better part of an hour, dropping jigs and spoons in their face. I finally got my cast net out of the boat and lobbed it out in front of me just to see what the things were...and they ended up being big 8-9 inch gizzard shad or some kind of shad....they weren't skipjack but I was surprised to see that's what I had wasted my time on trying to catch.

For most people, it's not something you can just throw on the boat and instantly become a dominate crappie fisherman. Especially if you didn't already have a background in being able to catch them, knowing their patterns, etc. My background in fishing for them is all that has saved me the last several trips, of not having the skunk on the boat. The crappie on Watts Bar and Hiwassee are in no danger of becoming extinct from me with Livescope. After putting the Ultrex trolling motor on my boat...for me, the biggest "well worth the money" I've ever bought for my boat is 110% the Ultrex. You can take the graphs and Livescope away, just as long as that trolling motor stays.

 

[bluball]

if that were true then everyone on here would have them. id dare to say the majority of the crappie fishermen are still traditional spring season fishermen.

Not sure if i would agree with that totally,i fish all yr long.In winter and summer you hardly ever saw another crappie fishermen,now they are everywhere.Most are livescopers and dont have trolling motors on the back,i agree on that.At a sports writers meeting the other day they were amazed and takeing pics of one of my buddies install,heard cornfield crappie are probally gonna start making kits for do it yourselfers.I have been fortunate to have fished with some great good fishermen and have saw a fish spooked off structure and followedbit in a big circle back to the place you spooked it from,dont work that way everytime.Im still not any good at chasing them but try sometimes.The livescopers that arnt pitching are casting,some even spiderscope useing less poles because you dont need them with livescope.

 

[WTM]

Not sure if i would agree with that totally,i fish all yr long.In winter and summer you hardly ever saw another crappie fishermen,now they are everywhere.Most are livescopers and dont have trolling motors on the back,i agree on that.At a sports writers meeting the other day they were amazed and takeing pics of one of my buddies install,heard cornfield crappie are probally gonna start making kits for do it yourselfers.I have been fortunate to have fished with some great good fishermen and have saw a fish spooked off structure and followedbit in a big circle back to the place you spooked it from,dont work that way everytime.Im still not any good at chasing them but try sometimes.The livescopers that arnt pitching are casting,some even spiderscope useing less poles because you dont need them with livescope.

seems like a nifty idea, i saw one of those crappie pros with a setup like that a couple of years ago. maybe better than dragging wind socks and chains?