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  1. #1
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    Livescope: Sonar signal effect fish?

    New Garmin LS user here in the ice belt. Been using and learning about my new Livescope Ice Bundle for a couple months now. Love what the unit will show under the ice and glad about the purchase. Would do it all over again.

    One of the things I’m not loving though is the realization that the sonar signal seems to be sensed and avoided by many - not all - fish, particularly when the unit is in shallow water in the down orientation - which is how I’ve been using it. I’ve been seeing this consistently and wonder if others are seeing similar patterns of behavior.

    By way of example, I was fishing a shallow area loaded with fish yesterday. Numerous species present. Fish were in every hole I drilled. Within 15 seconds of lowering the LS, the fish that were in the cone would vanish, never to return. Move to the next hole after a few minutes, the pattern repeats itself. Fish everywhere initially, then move away from the hole within a few seconds. Hole after hole and hour after hour this went on. Over the last two months of use, I’ve watched hundreds of fish on LS simply swimming, then seem to detect the sonar signal and abruptly change course to seemingly avoid the sonar cone. Slowly, I’ve come to the realization that what I’m seeing is avoidance behavior. Or is it? Talked to a friend over the weekend who said he ran into a long time LS user that had the same realization. Figured it was time to check myself on the BBC forum.

    I know some may consider this question blasphemous considering the money one has to shell out to buy these things, but has anyone else experienced this phenomena with LS, particularly in the down orientation in shallow water? Do fish sense and avoid the sonar signal?? What’s been your experience??

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    #2
    Are you sure its not just the light coming through the hole? How shallow? I mean... Maybe they see the stick hanging down through the hole too. Not discounting your findings. Just offering some other explanations. Since you say this only occurs in shallow water. One would think that depth is irrelevant if its the sonar beams spooking them.

    Who knows... Their lateral lines are pretty sensitive...

  3. Charger Boats Moderator TOUCH OF CLASS's Avatar
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    #3
    Turn it off see if they stay ,I know crappie could care less have caught about 1000 and never saw them leave

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    #4
    When I used to ice fish in Iowa in the 60's we would lay down and put a tarp over our head and you could see fish that way. It would be interesting to lower the LS into position with it turned off wait on the fish to show up then turn it on while watching. You could also put it in forward view and point it away from them and do the same test. Back when flashers were starting to become common on fishing boats anglers were saying the ping scared fish. I push jigs for crappie and can watch fish dive for the bottom when they are around 25 feet ahead. Changed to prop on my tm and they quit doing that. My new aluminum bass boat will make a popping sound if there is a little chop and I am trolling into it. That seams to turn fish off my heavy fiberglass bay boat didn't do that and I can see the difference. You learn a lot with a LS. If you run any test lets us know what you find. Don
    Don Johnson
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    #5
    Here is an article discussing hearing ranges of fishes.

    https://thefisheriesblog.com/2016/10...ility-to-hear/

    https://www.researchgate.net/figure/...ig10_334260018

    Fish have a low frequency hearing range, but marine mammals have a pretty high range. The lateral line on a fish is for detecting even lower frequency than they can hear through their ears. Thus, it seems incredibly unlikely that sonar has a negative effect on fish.

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    #6
    SamMule, good question about the light coming thru the hole. I tend not to think that is the case because fish are right under these pre-drilled holes and are evident when hole-hopping, then they disappear when the LS is inserted down into the hole. If they were avoiding the bright light coming thru the hole, they wouldn’t have been there to see in the first place?

    I get it about the hearing range of fish, but if indeed this is avoidance behavior being seen, then maybe they feel or sense the LS sonar energy/signal differently? It’s perplexing, but apparent that something is going on. It’s too consistent and obvious to ignore.

    Maybe I’ll try to video what I’m seeing and post as an example for those interested.

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    #7
    Thinking about this it is possible that it is not the frequency of the sound but with some transducers it is possible to heat a clicking sound when the transducer pings. That sound is not the frequency that is being transmitted as if it was we couldn't hear it either. Also maybe like you say they are not hearing it but feeling it. Turning the sounder off then on while watching them would be the big clue you might record that. Don
    Don Johnson
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    Crestliner VT 18 DX
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    Mini Kota Ulterra
    Console
    Helix 12 Chirp Mega SI+ G3N
    Garmin GPSMap 922
    Humminbird PiranaMAX for high speed depth readings

  8. Member
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    #8
    More time on the ice with LS in shallow water, this time using forward view. I blanked yesterday in the 7 hours fished, though was around fish all day, lots of fish, mostly crappie and white bass. I’m now feeling quite convinced now that fish avoid the LS sonar signal, at least in shallow water.

    As with the experiences I described above in the down orientation, the forward orientation showed lots of fish in the area, traveling in large schools and meandering around the area, quite close to me. The forward view showed that they wouldn’t come within 15 feet of the transducer. Instead they would stop and turn away. Drilling out holes surrounding a large bushy blowdown sitting in shallow water, my initial drop with the LS transducer showed dozens and dozens of fish in and around the branches. Within minutes they were gone and began swimming out around the open water around the tree in large groups. They were easy to follow with the LS, but would never venture closer than 15’ from the transducer. It was very frustrating, particularly since I had so much success using my previous sonar unit, at one time catching 81 crappies before noon last year out of a single shallow hole. Clearly, they weren’t frightened of the previous sonar unit, but they won’t come any where near this LS transducer.

    I’m not attempting to bash LS - it’s amazing technology - but if some one is contemplating using this unit to cleanup in shallow water (<10’) ice fishing situations, they may be very surprised. It’s been counter productive for me. From what I’ve seen, the fish seem to be able to detect the sonar signal and show avoidance behavior about 15-20’ away. Wish this weren’t the case based on the money I spent on this unit and the high hopes I had prior to purchasing. However, the fish behavior over my last three months of ownership seems consistent and conclusive. Fish can sense and tend to avoid the sonar signal within about 15’ of the transducer. At least that’s been my experience, having watched fish behavior for hundreds of hours now. I’ve tried to attach a screen shot of a video I took of this phenomenon to help illustrate what I’m seeing.
    Attached Images Attached Images

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    #9
    Havent tried it much in very shallow water, but ice fished yesterday in 20ft. Had many fish below 10-20 at any given time from 10-20ft down. Used it a few weeks ago in 8ft and didnt notice what you were saying but wasnt really watchjng for it either. One thing I have learned from panoptix is that fish just move around a lot more than I ever thought.

    would be an interesting experiment to put one in a big fish tank like they have at bass pro.

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    #10
    Interesting Brian. Does you body of water get a lot of fishing pressure? In my experience, pressure is one of the biggest factors affecting fish behavior.
    It would be fun to have a buddy with a camera watching to see how they react to different things dropped through the hole.
    2d vs panoptix, vs livescope. (On and off)
    Light vs dark vs moving shadows.
    So many variables!

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    #11
    Sam, the body of water I fished yesterday has nearly zero pressure. I’m the only one around. Agree there are a lot of variables and hope I am wrong with these observations, but I don’t think so. Its to the point where the LS might be used to locate fish generally, then turned off in favor of my old sonar. Not ideal... :(

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    #12
    Wow. That's crazy. Glad I haven't experienced that yet haha. Talk about frustrating!
    I suck at ice fishing though... Can find fish all day. Catching them is another story...

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    #13
    I think you ought to consider other explanations. I don't normally fish that shallow but yesterday I did. I was in 12 FOW and the crappie were from 5ft to the bottom. I had three units running and incuded was LVS32, PS22, GT50 with side-down-2d, GT54 with side-down-2d, GT8. None of these had any effect on the fish whatsoever. My lake has huge variations depending on where you are. Mid to Lower end is clear water with visibility to 30 ft. Neither fish nor bait will come under the boat here. The electronics have nothing to do with it. Yesterday I was on the upper end and the water was dingy. Visibility limited to probably a foot. I was very careful about boat noise and several times the crappie came directly under the boat and yes I caught them. I've never ice fished so my explanation is purely theoretical. Ice is hard. I would think that it transmits sound into the water just as good, if not better than making noise in a boat. If I drop something in the boat while watching crappie, I can see them bolt. They hear it and react negatively. I would imagine your fish may hear you walking over to a hole to put the transducer down.
    My wife asks if I'm going to fish every day. I can't fish every day. Some days I might be sick.

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    #14
    Any chance they just see the transducer/pole and are turned off by that? Quite a bit different than a vexilar transducer.

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    #15
    Puhlw, it’s possible. Only the fish know for sure. My guess is that is not the issue as my transducer is just below the ice and not moving. Seems pretty benign, but obviously we don’t know what the fish perceive.

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    #16
    Lwinchester2, good observations. What I’m seeing is generally in water 10’ or less. And, yes, crappies have come up and taken the bait right under the transducer in those depths, though that seems to be the rare exception more than the rule. Wish you could spend time watching this because it’s almost as if there is a force field below the transducer. Not as much of an issue in deeper water thankfully.

  17. Member
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    #17
    Brian

    I am curious for you to dive into this more and report back. So many variables that you cant control makes it a little hard to come up with a good test. If someone had a reasonable size fish tank that would probably be the easiest. And yet some fish species may be more sensitive than others.

    I really think some of it may be that you just have so much more information available to you that you were not aware of before. With a flasher you would have a VERY small cone in 10ft or less. You could have fish all around you and not know about them. The once you see on the flasher are more than likely coming to look/eat your lure, not just passing by.

    Now with the Livescope you see all these fish that are close by, but wont come over closer. Maybe its the Livescope, or maybe this has always happening and you were not aware using a flasher?

    I can tell you from using livescope that I never would have guessed how many fish come over to lure, but dont eat. Obviously it depends on the day but I would say it may be 50-100 fish that look at it for every one that eats.

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    #18
    Pulhw, you may well be right about only now seeing fish behavior with LS that wasn’t previously available with a traditional ice sonar. My impressions about LS are based on prior experiences using traditional sonars in which schools of crappies would park under the holes and stay there for long periods of time, or would periodically swim under the hole, which clearly isn’t happening now with LS. They aren’t avoiding the holes themselves since they will often be found when I hole hop around, but they will move away once the LS is dropped in, never to return closer than 15’ from the hole. I’ve seen it so many times it’s impossible to ignore. Will keep experimenting to see if other factors might be in play or if I can definitively attribute this to the LS signal.

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    #19
    I still want to know what happens when you put the LS transducer in the hole but not turned on. Then if they aren't effected turn it on and see if they scatter. Don
    Don Johnson
    U S Navy ATC Retired
    NE Florida
    Boat Name TRON
    Crestliner VT 18 DX
    Bow
    Helix 12 Chirp Mega DI+ G3N w/Mega 360 mounted of Fishing Specialties 360 Mount
    Helix 10 Chirp Mega SI G2N
    Garmin GPSMAP 1042 XSV w/LiveScope mounted on Fishing Specialties Bowducer Assy
    Mini Kota Ulterra
    Console
    Helix 12 Chirp Mega SI+ G3N
    Garmin GPSMap 922
    Humminbird PiranaMAX for high speed depth readings

  20. Member
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    #20
    So ice fished today in 11ft of water. Had schools of fish come and go. They didnt stay under me but they also didnt seem to be avoiding me. I think this may just be an artifact of all the additional information available. With a flasher you really dont know whats going on around you unless the fish are very close. Also after using livescope in the boat and ice fishing I have seen that fish seems to just roam around a lot more than I thought.
    The other aspect is you remember the really good days but forget about all the bad days.

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