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  1. #1
    Member DanR's Avatar
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    Question Looking for tips on Livescope in deeper water.

    Hey guys,

    I FINALLY got to do something I have been dying to try at a lake I love to fish a couple times a year... jigging for lakers! I'm already decent at it using regular sonar and "video gaming" it, but I figured with Livescope, I could not only see what was right under me, but I could pan around the boat and look for lakers all around and cast to them. So I was SUPER excited to try this.

    Well, color me disappointed, it was not what I had hoped for.

    I had my Livescope in downview position right next to the TM with my traditional sonar and I first tried panning around with my livescope mount and I couldn't see anything under or around the boat. To be clear, the bottom is a super flat lake with nothing on bottom so finding the lakers is about as easy as it gets. I tried turning up the gain quite a bit but still didn't really find anything and tried zooming in to the bottom. I then started to focus on the traditional and started finding some fish and vertical jigging them at 40 to 60 feet down. I could clearly see 2 or 3 fish cruising around my jig on the regular sonar (3 snake lines and my jig looking like a heart monitor) but no matter how much I fiddled with the LS, I couldn't see my lure or the fish under the boat. At one point I could see a fish go up to the jig and I got a hit (missed the fish) and the fish went back down and out of the cone. None of that was picked up on LS. The fish tend to cruise these deeper flats around 5 feet off the bottom, so there is definitely separation... it's not like walleyes that have their bellies in the mud.

    Now at 30 feet, I could clearly see my jig on LS and see some fish moving around and reacting to my jig, but as soon as I moved out past 40 feet, nothing. In 20 feet of water with forward facing, it was so cool watching fish go after my jigs and dropshot.

    Any tips on how to get better clarity and see targets at those deeper depths? I would love to try again next weekend. I am running the LVS32 on an Ultra 126.

    Thanks!
    Dan

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    #2
    I fish for spotted bass deep a lot on my lake. I use Livescope in the "forward" view only. You still should be able to see your bait fall all the way to the bottom in 60+ feet of water and see how the fish react, even if the bait is vertical. My recommendation is to find a calm spot of water and dial in settings until you can see the bait go all the way to the bottom. When that is set, you can certainly see fish. I'm able to follow my dropshot down on livescope with no problem and see how the fish respond.

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    #3
    Like Keoweefishing, I use Forward Mode only, even when jigging straight down. Keep in mind that LVS shows a slice of the water, much like down imaging and keeping a fish or lure in that cone is delicate. For fishing straight down, 2d sonar has little competition. It's a 360 cone with no turning or special pointing. I use the Forward View to locate fish away from me to cast to. My favorite combo screen is split screen 2d and LVS. I make the 2d as small as possible. As my lure gets directly under me, my eyes switch from the LVS to the 2d. It's very effective and eliminates the rotation struggle to pick the fish/lure back up. Your 2d transducer needs to be where you are. If it's mounted on the transom 17-22 ft away, it's not much help.

    My jigging from now through the end of January will be 60-130 ft deep. As you approach 90 ft the tuning becomes critical. I turn all filters off. That's Noise Rejection, Ghost Rejection, TVG. Overall Gain will be 75-80 and Color Gain will be 95. Yes, the screen is rather messy. Your water may be different but it's actually an easy task to dial in your settings. Catch a fish, the size you are targetting, put it on a line with a weight under it and suspend it under a floating jug at your target depth. Get about 40-50 ft away from it and point towards it. Now experiment with your settings to see what gives you the best result. Water conditions change, temps change and there could be seasonal differences. What works for me might be different for you. My most critical discovery was with Color Gain. An 18 inch walleye at 90-100 ft deep can easily disappear completely just by turning Color Gain down. Once you are seeing your target satisfactorily then you can fiddle with the filters to see if you can clean up the screen and still keep the target. You'll also see that the larger the range and depth setting the smaller the target gets. There is a huge difference in the return when the range is 60 compared to 120.
    Last edited by LWINCHESTER2; 08-08-2022 at 06:55 AM.
    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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    #4
    not trying to steal your thread ,i too fish deep water for spots on a gps1022XSV and for the life of me cant figure out how to combo GPS and livescope for off shore fishing .when i try to combo gps and livescope, livescope never come up on the screen what am i doing wrong just regular downimaging and map combinations come up .send help :) please

  5. Member DanR's Avatar
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    #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Keoweefishing View Post
    I fish for spotted bass deep a lot on my lake. I use Livescope in the "forward" view only. You still should be able to see your bait fall all the way to the bottom in 60+ feet of water and see how the fish react, even if the bait is vertical. My recommendation is to find a calm spot of water and dial in settings until you can see the bait go all the way to the bottom. When that is set, you can certainly see fish. I'm able to follow my dropshot down on livescope with no problem and see how the fish respond.
    I should mention I started off with forward mode and saw nothing and switched to down thinking it would be better. So basically I was fishing in 15 - 30 feet for bass in forward mode and everything was great. Once I moved to laker depths, I just couldn't see anything so I switched to down view position and still nadda but I was seeing everything easily on regular 2D. So I stopped fiddlign with LS and just fished a bit before the sun went down completely and I had to head back to the ramp. I'll have to go back and continue to try out different things I guess.

  6. Member DanR's Avatar
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    #6
    Quote Originally Posted by LWINCHESTER2 View Post
    Like Keoweefishing, I use Forward Mode only, even when jigging straight down. Keep in mind that LVS shows a slice of the water, much like down imaging and keeping a fish or lure in that cone is delicate. For fishing straight down, 2d sonar has little competition. It's a 360 cone with no turning or special pointing. I use the Forward View to locate fish away from me to cast to. My favorite combo screen is split screen 2d and LVS. I make the 2d as small as possible. As my lure gets directly under me, my eyes switch from the LVS to the 2d. It's very effective and eliminates the rotation struggle to pick the fish/lure back up. Your 2d transducer needs to be where you are. If it's mounted on the transom 17-22 ft away, it's not much help.

    My jigging from now through the end of January will be 60-130 ft deep. As you approach 90 ft the tuning becomes critical. I turn all filters off. That's Noise Rejection, Ghost Rejection, TVG. Overall Gain will be 75-80 and Color Gain will be 95. Yes, the screen is rather messy. Your water may be different but it's actually an easy task to dial in your settings. Catch a fish, the size you are targetting, put it on a line with a weight under it and suspend it under a floating jug at your target depth. Get about 40-50 ft away from it and point towards it. Now experiment with your settings to see what gives you the best result. Water conditions change, temps change and there could be seasonal differences. What works for me might be different for you. My most critical discovery was with Color Gain. An 18 inch walleye at 90-100 ft deep can easily disappear completely just by turning Color Gain down. Once you are seeing your target satisfactorily then you can fiddle with the filters to see if you can clean up the screen and still keep the target. You'll also see that the larger the range and depth setting the smaller the target gets. There is a huge difference in the return when the range is 60 compared to 120.
    Thanks so much for this feedback on the color gain and trick with a practice fish! I'll definitely give this a shot... I'm going to head back this weekend and try again and use your trick. I actually did set up an LVS/2D split and was using that but good to know it's easier to pick up the fish away from the boat and then switch to 2D when they are right under it. Thanks for all that!

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    #7
    You should definitely be able to see fish in forward mode. Turn up your gain; I run anywhere from 60-80 gain in deep water. Every body of water and set up is a bit different so you will have to experiment with settings until you get the best image possible.

  8. Member DanR's Avatar
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    #8
    Hey guys, just wanted to say thank you for the feedback and tips for the deeper sonar usage. I went back out last weekend by myself for a good 10 hours and I just worked on Livescope the entire time and I was able to dial it in to the point that I could see everything... the fish and the jigging and I was down 40 to 70 feet, it was awesome! Another thing that I saw that was mental was loons!!! I had a pair of loons diving around the boat looking for fish and I could see them on livescope!!!!! Now you couldn't see it was a bird, it was just like a big blur of motion that would fly through the scanning area, it was so cool!

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    #9
    Excellent. We get loons here in the winter and they are cool to watch on livescope; they can dive incredibly deep into a school of baitfish. I watched one go into a school of bait and feed on livescope!

  10. Member RMG63's Avatar
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    #10
    We get Loons down here too at Sam Rayburn in the winter. In fact, when idling into an area with Loons around is a great sign that baitfish are close by. Love those birds, they are beautiful creatures and their whistling. Always worried that one would accidently eat my lure when around them but thank God that has never happened. Can't imagine the ruckus that would be !!
    Seeing one dive on Livescope this year will be a cool moment !!
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    #11
    Sounds like you need an LVS34.
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