So Forward facing sonar is dominating tourneys

[Chris1978]

If it’s a retail product that is available to everyone then there’s no reason to ban it as it is a tool that everyone can access if they choose.

Now if pro “A” gets to use say Livescoope 3.0 while others cannot, then that becomes an unfair advantage. But maybe that’s not wrong either, who am I to say.

[Spot-a-saurus]

I think eventually fish will become conditioned slightly to the pinging of live sonar just like we have seen them do with other types of sonar. Whether that translates into it being a noticeable change in catch rates will take some time but if you do something enough fish will change slightly. They aren’t smart but they are instinctual and if a high frequency clicking noise indicates danger after being caught, some will react negatively to it. We will see but I don’t think FFS is going to destroy fishing or tournaments. It will be a great weapon in some tournaments but a detriment in others.

[toporanger]

They just caught the following largemouth bass at a Texas lake due to LS:
a 16 Pounder (lake record), 2 - 15’s, 2 - 14’s, 13, 2 -12’s and they quit even talking about the “little” 11 pounders and smaller. Then the smallmouth record was broken 3 times. All of these fish were 30’-40’. Not sure what your definition of deep offshore is though, you might mean 50’+.

Were these suspended fish? I say that as in my experience with my livescope forward facing isnt really useable at 30-40 deep if the fish are on the bottom. NOW if they have set to down......

[grout-scout]

Were these suspended fish? I say that as in my experience with my livescope forward facing isnt really useable at 30-40 deep if the fish are on the bottom. NOW if they have set to down......

I’m not certain, they didn’t show the screen very much in the video. If anyone wants to watch some gigantic pigs being caught on camera, go to Milliken Fishing on Youtube. These guys truly understand how to use their LS system, I was hoping they were going to show the graph more.

Some of the fish above were caught by a guy named Josh Jones. I haven’t seen his videos, he might have shown the screen more. I’ll get around to watching them eventually.

[pfisher]

Definitely a concern on the local lakes in the Madison WI area as the number of folks who "double dip" on panfish is alarming, same boats on bedding fish in the morning and back on the same spots that afternoon/evening. Lots of IL weekend warriors too since it's only a 2.5 hour drive, one guy(bar owner) was caught with several thousand panfish in his possession(freezers) as he wanted to have a huge fish fry back home. I know that several times the topic of reducing the panfish limit from 25 down to 10 has been mentioned but not passed.....yet.

They have been doing that since before electronics. Nothing new here.

[pfisher]

Are all you folks 30 or younger? They wanted the flasher banned, then the paper graph, then SI and now it's all about live imaging. I say reign in the amount of tournaments on a given body of water per year and the rest will take care of itself. The pressure around here is insane.

[grout-scout]

I wish I was 30 or younger, but other than that, not much of post #26 makes any sense. Who is “they”?

[DonnieG]

Are all you folks 30 or younger? They wanted the flasher banned, then the paper graph, then SI and now it's all about live imaging. I say reign in the amount of tournaments on a given body of water per year and the rest will take care of itself. .

Spot on:::::Totally agree

[TroyBoy30]

no

[Astrochris]

Can't stop progress,, the technology is here to stay.

[redxdu]

I ask this out of pure ignorance because I never had original Panoptix, but are you guys surprised it took as long as it did for forward viewing sonar to become as hot of a topic as it has? Was the first version not good enough to do most of the same things? I remember several years ago MDJ winning the Elite event on Lake Oahe using his Panoptix and no one made a fuss. Now it seems like everywhere you turn there's someone wanting to gripe about how much forward viewing sonar is ruining the sport. Interesting that there was as much lag as there was.

[grout-scout]

I ask this out of pure ignorance because I never had original Panoptix, but are you guys surprised it took as long as it did for forward viewing sonar to become as hot of a topic as it has? Was the first version not good enough to do most of the same things? I remember several years ago MDJ winning the Elite event on Lake Oahe using his Panoptix and no one made a fuss. Now it seems like everywhere you turn there's someone wanting to gripe about how much forward viewing sonar is ruining the sport. Interesting that there was as much lag as there was.

In my opinion, people at first thought it was just luck. Then Scott Martin won an event and that raised a few eye brows. Then Patrick Walters clobbered the competition at Fork. Then Jacob Wheeler...then the cat was just out of the bag.

For many of us, cost was a major factor.

I have no clue if the crappie tournament guys complain about it or not, we don’t have any of those around here.

[TroyBoy30]

I ask this out of pure ignorance because I never had original Panoptix, but are you guys surprised it took as long as it did for forward viewing sonar to become as hot of a topic as it has? Was the first version not good enough to do most of the same things? I remember several years ago MDJ winning the Elite event on Lake Oahe using his Panoptix and no one made a fuss. Now it seems like everywhere you turn there's someone wanting to gripe about how much forward viewing sonar is ruining the sport. Interesting that there was as much lag as there was.

i still prefer the original panoptix. much better range and larger returns

from way back in 2015 when no one had it

[magqw7]

In my opinion, people at first thought it was just luck. Then Scott Martin won an event and that raised a few eye brows. Then Patrick Walters clobbered the competition at Fork. Then Jacob Wheeler...then the cat was just out of the bag.

For many of us, cost was a major factor.

I have no clue if the crappie tournament guys complain about it or not, we don’t have any of those around here.

As far as the crappie tournament guys- There is no longer a boat in a tournament without it on the front, some have two of them and I am sure there is a few with three. I have seen some boats that have up to 7 screens on their boat total. Basically the past two years have been dominated by it(Single Poling) and that includes lakes that were historically won by trolling or spider rigging. Some like it, some hate it. Some guys are hanging it up because of it. It has totally changed the sport from the tournament side of it. Basically every lake is seeing much larger weights than what it used to take to win a tournament. It has also changed from the non tournament side because there is more guys popping up everyday with a jon boat and a livescope that are claiming to be a "crappie guide".

[bsn4785]

It will never be banned down here in Louisiana . We can pretty much catch or kill anything by any means possible. LOl, now La. Depart. of Wildlife and Fisheries may require us to buy a special license to use it , as soon as they figure out how much "Revenue" they could make !!

[pacwa]

Livescope, Active Target and Mega Live Imaging by HB to be released in July is not going to be banned by major tournaments. If you are not familiar with what a proficient LS user can produce, check out Josh Jones on YouTube. One video is of him fishing with Houston, and there is a very good video of him talking crappie fishing at crappie connection. On March 1, on Jone’s FB page, he said his best 5 bass weighed 54 pounds. Jones has spent so many days on the water glued to his LS screen, he knows the approximate size of the fish. No wasted timed on small fish. I am looking for to Garmin’s Gen 3 of LS. Some say it’s 3D, but that’s hard to imagine.