Trouble seeing bass on the bottom with Livescope
I have had difficulty seeing bass that sit or swim on the bottom with my live scope. No problem seeing them up in the water 70 feet out. But if they are more than 15 feet in front of me I can’t see them if there on the bottom. Anyone have this issue? What did you do to fix?
Do not use bottom fill
at ranges over 35' you need to see movement if they are on the bottom so the boat can't be rolling on power 70.
bring range in to 60'
Mercury 250 proxs 2B115089
I don’t use bottom fill. I get what your saying about movement. I have a hard time telling if it’s fish moving or static from the graph. I have a 93sv+. Could my screen be too small to pick out the detail? I’ve tried many settings just for the purpose of Picking them up on the bottom. I have to push the gain way up to get returns on the bottom. This obviously blows out the image. I have to get down on my knees to tell and even then it’s tough. I put in a picture so you can see the bass up high. I assure you there are several on the bottom as well. But cant pick them out.
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Fish that are tight to the bottom are going to be hard to detect unless they are moving. And even then it can be tough unless your boat is completely stationary.
The further out you get the worse it will be. I have a 12" screen and still limit my range to about 35ft when looking for fish. Now if if your looking for structure or suspended fish you can kick this out to 60-70ft but they will just be flickers until you get closer say 40 ft or less.
Would depend on the size of fish your talking also. 12" bass will probably be hard to detect. 20" maybe not so much.
Bring distance in to 40-50'
The lakes I fish are pressured. if I get within 20-30 feet of them they’ll scatter. They’ll never show up on down scan either because they will avoid the boat. Until I had Livescope I sucked at this lake in particular. Now as long as it’s not raining or cloudy I can catch them no problem. If it clouds over the fish will go strait to the bottom and be impossible to find. You can still catch them but searching for them becomes a game of chance.
I've not used any technology that will show fish dead on the bottom reliably. Way back some Genetron users said it would. I bought one. It did not. The Vexilar Edge3 does the best on 2d that I've used but LiveScope beats it. Even with LiveScope though, I see spotted bass go from 20 ft feeding to 40 or 60 feet on the bottom and totally out of sight. Unless you saw where they went down it will be what puhlw said. You gotta see them move.
My wife asks if I'm going to fish every day. I can't fish every day. Some days I might be sick.
I was hoping Livescope would be able to accomplish this but it looks like the technology still needs to be improved before the fish truly can’t hide.
Id say most fish laying tight to the bottom and not moving are not in “feeding” mode anyhow. Probably be very tough to catch even if you could see them.
Many years ago, I did an experiment. The bottom was flat. I took a 16 in bass, killed it but took care not to damage it's air bladder. I had made an apparatus to hold it in an upright position, as if alive.I used two thin strips of plastic from a water bottle and this was all mounted on a flat rock to make it sink. I sunk it with a buoy marker and a few feet from it I also placed a rock about the same size. I don't recall now how deep the water was. I was using a Lowrance, Humminbird and Genetron. All three showed the fish and the rock. I was not able to adjust the settings on any of them to discriminate which blob was the fish and which was the rock. For what it's worth.
My wife asks if I'm going to fish every day. I can't fish every day. Some days I might be sick.
Bass are crazy creatures very smart to a point.Best way is to run a crank bait along the bottom and watch your scope they will dart up and probably not bite but you will get a good idea of how bass think and react to a bait.
Its a learning curve as you have to rethink how you fish and you will start to understand more and more of fish behavior .I live on a lake fish just about every day and have seen crazy stuff watching the scope.
Now that winter is coming the jerk bait bite will come on and that’s really cool just watching you lure sit there and than here comes a bass ..
I ran a little video last night this is our lake right now full of grass this is on down vu and your not going to see much in it.But run a small grub across the top on your scope and you will find out what is there
Theirs not much grass in the lakes I fish. Only around the edges. Anything 3 feet or more is barren except for hard bottom and trash piles. Those fish will disappear on that hard bottom and you can’t see them.
Now that would be a video I would like to view.But run a small grub across the top on your scope and you will find out what is there
If I get out I’ll do a video
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