Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Livescope / Crappie / Catfish behavior

Last week I hired a guide to take some employees out for a day. Talking fishing all day was well deserved for these guys. One of them had used this guide before so no problem booking him.

Crappie were staging out from the banks; guide would cruise timber in a creek channel and dial us in via livescope to a specific tree that held one or two crappie. I'd say 60% of the fish took the jig immediately and another 10% were coaxed into biting. Some spooked and some didnt eat. This guide has been in front of these high-powered electronics since they hit the market several years ago. He knew his stuff. Pointing out carp, gar, catfish, and then crappies. He was an ace with boat control. It was a great day.

I'd been in a friend's boat with livescope but pinpoint targeting one or two specific fish was not in my what he was looking for. I think the scope helped us find groups of fish.

I learned a couple things with the guide (other than I need a new boat with Livescope !)
1) Jig presentation - we didn't jig. We kept the jig above the fish and let them come to it. If they didn't smack it immediately, a slow rise often triggered them to come up. Even the rise and fall of the waves cause some to spook. I thought this was fascinating to keep the jig stationary. I'm not a seasoned crappie fisherman so maybe this is old news to you guys but good for me to see 'live'.
2) Flatheads and Blues - These fish were a little hard to view on the livescope (since they dont have scales). The guide knew what he was looking for and he helped point them out to use. Often as we approached a tree with a big catfish on it; the big ones were often the surface. They would watch them cruise up and down the timber. They seemed to be a little more skittish than the crappies and would cruise away when the boat got overhead.

A great day on the water and amazing to see a pro work the livescope.

Last December (2021), the state of KS equipped 6 boats, 3 with Live scope, 3 with std sonar and rounded up 40 participants in 2-man teams, divided Cedar Bluff into north and south zones and spent 3 weeks using anglers 2 days at a time fishing with live scope on one day and std sonar the next.
I was able to be a part of this. When the Data was published, it was determined that Live scope had no affect on catch rate, in fact it was reversed, more fish were caught with std sonar than Live scope. We also were not fishing for spoonbill. If they figure that out, it is what it is.
Even with Live scope, you still don't know (on most sport fish species) if they are crappie, shad, carp, whitebass, etc.. It's real easy to get hung up on trying to catch a fish that is not what you think it might be.

As was shown in the Walleye Tournaments, lead is cheap! LOL

I coach some technical sports (polevault, highjump, triple, etc). Not long ago is was against State rules to share video with kids during competition. Not all districts could afford video cameras so it was an unfair advantage to the wealthier districts. Now the rules have lighted up considerably as there are cameras everywhere and it's no longer a shift based on money. Money is always going to be an issue but I'd prefer competitions to be based on skills, not purchased performance. With that said I would absolutely love to get one of these things on my pond for an afternoon of toolin around!

Bass pros are allowed to use LiveScope during tournaments. Hard to win without using this $$ technology, pro bass fishing has become a rich man's game. Many pros spend most of their time with their head down staring at the Scope, not fishing at all, until they spot a bass on LS.

Not everyone is pleased, as this tech substitutes money for what used to be skill.

Have you priced one? I did a while back. It's not just the price of the unit, I think the transducer and other necessities to get it to work are "extra".

Agree 100 percent. LS should be banned at tournaments, but this is tough. I suspect the makers are significant sponsors.

I'd say our crappie guide knew pretty well what we (ok I mean HE) were looking at... The scope reads density so a hard scaled carp is brighter than a catfish. Another property of the scope is the beam is somewhat incremental; reading the beam and noting the fish is 36" long this is likely not a bass but a trash fish. Small fish appear small. You could make out a gar by the profile. Behavior observations with time in the saddle will make most a better targeted fisherman.

The channel we were fishing was a known staging area prespawn so identifying the targeted crappie wasn't random by any means.

I bet that the guys that are familiar with how the Livescope reads would be much more adept at using it to catch fish (and determining fish species when showing on the screen) than people that have not used it for any length of time.

I'd love to seen how that test in Kansas would have played out if 20 of the people were using Live scope for the previous year for as many days as a bass tournament fisherman has used them in the previous year.

Just like a person that has been using a shotgun for a long length of time and has practiced seriously at shooting clay birds vs a person that has shot shotgun for the same length of time buy hasn't practiced seriously. Their scores shooting the same course will vary greatly. I have proven that scenario to be fact with the group that I shoot with on a monthly basis.