Live Sonar - my Journey so far

[Huxstang]

I thought I might share some of my experiences with Livescope so far.  

First disclaimer - I am a tech head (even though I am almost 60).  I studied IT and have loved every bit of nerdy gadgets that has come along even though I never actually followed through and became an IT professional - just managed them for a while.

 

So got my new boat in September and decided that it needed all the gear - yep all the gear no idea.  

But thanks to the wonders of the internet, youtube and the like I was able to do a crash course on using live sonar, what the settings were and how they affected what you saw.  

Now I do not claim to be an expert but i think I am learning pretty well the more time I spend on it.

Now I have Garmin Livescope Plus (ie LVS34) - in my personal opinion they were the originators and are very heavily invested in it and at the time I made the decision were a generation infront of others.  Also I like Garmin screens….I like the menus etc and as a bay/estuary guy their transducers generally were going to suit so I didnt have to have a mixed bad of brands.

I have shared two videos so far - on in fresh water and one in saltwater.  Both in relatively shallow water however have been in as deep as 18 metres with it.  Quite a few learning there as it is best to manually adjust the depth range and as I discovered you need to push your distance range at the same time (or reduce it) to ensure you are seeing in a usable range.

Suprisingly they are quite easy to use out of the box.  Garmin have two different settings (its called focus) which are optimised for salt or fresh.  Other than that its the gain (which is the sensitivity) ie the clutter you see on screen.  Colour is personal - most like amber….same for me.  

Once you see it in action its really easy to understand, you can see your lure, if its in the beam, you see fish move around and you can see the distance and depth.

Benefits I have seen so far is that you can actually see things your other sonar will not show eg big barra stalking in tight treed country.  Up under lilly banks and like today schooled fish that are easily seen in a lot of other clutter.

Like all marine electronics time on water is the key….

https://www.facebook.com/1276354345/posts/pfbid024w7ydeKsQMmWQBETN1XZyz9r2xFL4Pmiy7T5HPo44TUF8XqszGbXUgNwjNTCdQzVl/?

[Hweebe]

Must be an IT guy thing (I'm also IT Project delivery) and also had to get my boat kitted out with all the latest gadgets and electronics when i got my boat (DIY of course)

When are you going to get Sonar on your boat and then open it up to auto pilot hahaha (not because you need it but because its a tech gadget  

Getting the sounders dialled in and settings to what you want is as you say time on the water.

I always thought livescope was more for your fresh water fishing (all the US Bass guys run it) In salt water and deeper water does it come in handy.

I've seen vision of livescope for the guys that go prawning. Now that's a sight seeing the prawns and cast net live.

[Huxstang]

I am keen to try it in deeper water.  They say 100feet is fine.  Next time I venture out to Harries and the like will try it in that 20m range.  As I said, just playing with it got a better understanding of how to adjust the manual ranges better and what it means so really keen to try it in down mode over the wrecks or forward mode around any of the beacons.

I had a great time looking at the geen channel marker at Clara rocks yesterday which is in 12m of water - should have recorded it, you can clearly see the base structure of the beacon and some form of platform that is well below water.  Sort of like a bell shape.  Quite interesting but no fish around it worth talking about.

[Corry]

I'm going to follow this with interest. I also like all the gadgets, when we got our new offshore boat last year we kitted it out with everything except Live, figured it'd be absolutely useless in 80-100m of water, and when trolling. Everything is Garmin... Autopilot, Radar, twin 8412's etc, but now we've just picked up our new estuary boat, I'm in the process of working out what I need to kit it out. It won't get the auto trim tabs, autopilot and radar, but I am going everything Garmin, 12" sounders, Kracken TM, and looking at Live. 

Interested to follow your journey with how you find it, what quirks you find with it, any issues you have using it. I really tossed up between Humminbird and Garmin, but am going to stick with Garmin to keep both boats the same. 

[Junky]

24 minutes ago, Corry said:

I'm going to follow this with interest. I also like all the gadgets, when we got our new offshore boat last year we kitted it out with everything except Live, figured it'd be absolutely useless in 80-100m of water, and when trolling. Everything is Garmin... Autopilot, Radar, twin 8412's etc, but now we've just picked up our new estuary boat, I'm in the process of working out what I need to kit it out. It won't get the auto trim tabs, autopilot and radar, but I am going everything Garmin, 12" sounders, Kracken TM, and looking at Live. 

Interested to follow your journey with how you find it, what quirks you find with it, any issues you have using it. I really tossed up between Humminbird and Garmin, but am going to stick with Garmin to keep both boats the same. 

You've made the right decision. 

Garmin are very nice units. 

 

Keep an eye on the new panoptix PS70 live sonar. Made for 1000ft, apparently. 

 

Panoptix PS70