Since FFS started taking off, I haven't been seeing or hearing about Hydrowave - did Livescope disprove it's efficacy?
Since FFS started taking off, I haven't been seeing or hearing about Hydrowave - did Livescope disprove it's efficacy?
1990 Ranger 362V Yamaha Pro-V 150
Old Town Predator MinnKota
Good question! Interested to see if anyone has checked this out.
2007 Ranger Z19 - 225 Pro XS
Itd be very, very easy to record bass going crazy once you turn the hydro wave on. The fact that it doesn’t exist says a lot.
2020 Nitro Z20 Pro Package
I see bass come up and check out my tm often, especially if Im talon down near vegetation theyll come out of it. They come to about 7 yards from the tm head. I have been talon and seen them come and go for hours then the wind stops and they stop traveling, wind picks up they travel again. Ive made a few active captain video's in the past when talon down and it was going on like pigs to a feeder, but didnt save them or post them. I decided whats the point why do I care about idiot whispering on the www.
Ive had shad completely fill my 360 screen, then pause it and they disperse, un pause and they come back.
Ive also had craw on gravel running on a small mouth lake and had a bird deep diving around my boat for 5 minutes, then paused it and it drifted away when it got to about 125 yards I un paused it and the bird came right back. I was in 25 feet of water and that bird would go down and look around then surface and repeat.
Based on the bird I concluded that fish are different and know where the sound is coming from unlike the bird that was looking at the bottom of the lake in the gravel/rocks. I have never seen fish doing something like the bird. The fish I see come towards the tm dead straight at it and then they turn and slowly drift down and away.
That said if they are coming towards it to check it out, maybe you catch some of those?
Or maybe they are too focused on that sound and you have no chance of catching those?
Or maybe they just know your there since craw on gravel isnt up off the bottom or whatever sound your playing and they wont bite?
Ive also had plenty of fish come up and check out my tm when it was off, usually large large catfish they will come closer than bass before leaving 3-5 feet at times.
I havent been able to determine if I catch fish more with it vs without, like I have with scent and line size which I have 100% proven to myself.
My thoughts as wellOriginally Posted by Mcjenson
You every play with it on bed fish that you can see?
A gimmick?
I have caught a ton of bed fish, from a distance and parked on top of them. Ive never seen it change anything w them.
On falcon lake I think it caused some huge carp to come to my tm and then they dive bombed a 7lber on the bed. They took about 3-4 passes at that bass.
Very good question. Like ffs or not, a lot is being learned about fish behavior using it..
Dale Sinclair original
I've said this before, so pardon me if you've heard it.
It would be very easy to design a double blind experiment to determine if and under what conditions the Hydrowave resulted in fishermen getting more bites (whether the bites came from increased bass activity, increased baitfish or prey activity, really doesn't matter). The manufacturer could have commissioned such a study, but to my knowledge they have not and I don't think anyone else has done the research, either. Until I see the results of that type of study, I will view the Hydrowave as a gimmick.
"The man of system is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it…He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chessboard.” Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Even if you don't involve studies, the fact that the vast majority of boats in the elites don't have it says a lot to me. You have guys with 50K of electronics on their boats, you think they would hesitate to add hydrowave if it was really effective?
2020 Nitro Z20 Pro Package
So I have one as it came on my boat when I bought it. Have I ever noticed it making a difference for bass. Only a few times I have turned it on and had smallies lift up off the bottom enough to pick them up on livescope. Now if you crappie or perch fish as I occasionally do, that is where I notice a difference. Turn on a bait frenzy and start throwing a 2.8 swimbait around and they get all cracked out.
Was it ever effective? I don't know anyone who ran one.
I always thought it was.
2018 Phoenix 920 Pro XP
Had a buddy who had one, he sold it.
It seems that when MLF first started, some of the guys were announcing that they were turning on the Hydrowave when they started fishing that day.
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