thoughts on ff sonar

[padon]

curious on your opnion. how much do you think ff sonar is gonna really help the average weekend angler. ive been thinking about getting it. the pros make it look so easy to just handle the boat drop your lure right on the fish and catch them. but when you talk to guys who really know they tell you iys not as easy as those guys make it look. it takes alot of hours on the water to get that cone exactly where you want it, place that lure on the fish and catch it while controlling the boat in the wind etc. for the average guy who gets to fish one dat a week and maybe a multi day trip once a year do you think they are good enough with it to justify the cost? i almost think that 360 which would give me the ability to see exactly where the cover is and place my casts on it would be more valuable to me.

[A-Jay]

Following.

A-Jay 

[Choporoz]

I have watched a number of videos of experts with screens, and I am not sure I'll ever see what they are seeing.  On the other hand, about three weeks ago, I watched a boat troll around middle of the lake...sort of zig-zagging staring at screen, operating a pole separate from his TM....over 40-45' water.  He stopped and within no more than 15 minutes, I saw him boat two bass on a spinning rod that both were easily 4+.  Not giants, but I didn't sniff a 3 all day.  I moved on, but when I came back through maybe 90 minutes later, a different guy with FFS, who was catching nice bass in the middle awfully close to where the earlier one was....probably same school?  Idk...but I do know that I can't catch suspended June LMB to save my life....at least not with down and side scans.   Single, small data point, but I am convinced that some weekenders and Wednesday night club guys are going to have game changing experiences with it.  

[casts_by_fly]

I upgraded from a Helix 7 to a Helix 9 with mega live back in the winter/spring and have been using it for four months now.  I'm in a trolling motor kayak, not a big boat, and mine is on a pole mount, not the trolling motor.  I'm a 'weekend' angler as you describe it, though I tend to get out weeknight evenings and some weekend days.  I'll average 1 days a week from March through October, though its concentrated a bit in the spring and late summer.

 

So far, I really like it.  Its taken me about 4 months (75-100 hours on the water) to get to a point where I'm dialing in the settings and knowing what I'm looking at.  I still have some ways to go, but I can confidently use it to look at cover and see fish swimming.  I can track my lure some of the time.  I've used it once to target a school of fish and actively catch one from it (they were perch).  I don't use it like you see the pros do on TV- casting to a school of bass and watching them hit your lure on the screen.  I have a ways to go before I'm there and I don't know that it will be possible in the kayak.  Its really hard to track moving fish.  Its also really hard to track stationary fish when the boat is tail swinging when spotlocked.  You have to find them, make a cast to them, then adjust the pole mid-cast as the boat swings around.  I need to be an octopus to do that.  In calm water with no wind that's different and possible.  Target lock might be the solution, but for another $1500 I'm not there yet.

 

What I use it for most right now, is when I'm fishing down the bank and want to see what the slope looks like or where the grass is growing or what the cover looks like ahead.  You can do that with side or down imaging, but then you're running over it and not fishing it.  Also in my kayak limited by an electric motor motoring around to graph spots is a waste of battery and time (my two limiting factors on the water).

 

Has it gotten me fish I wouldn't have caught otherwise?  Yes, a couple.  I talked about it in a recent trip report (the beauty of small places) where I used live imaging to see what the grasslines looked like and decided I could fish a big crankbait to hit the right depth.  I caught two that way.  I wouldn't have considered a deep crankbait in a small lake (practically a pond) for that use.  As I use it more I expect I will find other opportunities where it contributes.  I have an idea for it that I will be trying in the near future, so watch this space.

 

What can't it do- show you inside a weed bed.  You can dial it in to show you individual strands of milfoil on their own but once you get to that front edge of the grass bed you're done.  If the fish are inside the grass you might as well turn it off.  That said, I figured I'd be done using it here once the grass grew up.  That's true in a couple lakes around but I don't use a regular FF there either.  At this point in time, I load it on the boat every trip and just turn it on.  I'll fish the way I want to fish and every now and then glance at it.  If the fishing is slow I might go play with it for a bit to take a break.

 

Is it worth the money?  Only you can answer that.  I had a helix 7 which couldn't take megalive.  I wanted to stay HBird.  Using as much mounting equipment as I could, selling my Helix 7, and buying a Helix 9/megalive/pole mount netted out just over $3k.  If you have a compatible head unit already then you can do it for half that.  We happened to have a really great bonus this past year and I decided to splurge on myself a little bit.  

[TnRiver46]

@Woody B and @Blue Raider Bob are weekend anglers with FF sonar 

[Woody B]

I have Lowrance Active Target.

 

The pros make everything look easy.  They make it look easy to cast a spinnerbait into a coffee cup 50 yards away in the wind.   

 

There's a learning curve.   I see a BUNCH of anglers with all kinds of sonar equipment, but they're not using it.   They're blindly casting to any visible cover, mostly docks.  When the internet says they need to fish on points they'll be fishing an area where the land indicates a point.  They're not even using their 2D sonar to find where a point really is.   

 

I don't "video game fish".....not in the manner many do.  I use it to find active fish, then ignore the screen for the most part during my retrieve.  When I see a fish following my lure I have a tendency to do stupid stuff that prevents them from striking.  I've had mine for ~10 months now.  I honestly can't say if I catch more bass or not.  However, I can say for sure I make less cast per bass than I did before I had it.   I have a small tear in my right labrum, so making less cast per bass is a good thing.   I'm on vacation right now.  I've fished 6 days in a row so far and caught a bunch of bass.  Before live sonar I would have to rested my shoulder for a day by now.   

 

I should spend more time messing with my sonar but I can only handle so much time on the water without fishing.  I suspect the pros spent days, or even weeks without making a single cast to learn the ins and outs of their equipment.   

[Choporoz]

I don't know how they can decipher it on those chicken scratch screens, but I have heard more than a couple pros say that the real benefit is being able to see how fish react to a lure.....and then being able to adjust your game using that information.   That's a whole county beyond using FFS to help find fish

[Tennessee Boy]

Check out the Fish The Moment YouTube channel.  Jonny Shultz did some recent live videos from the lake with video from his electronics.  Most of the videos you see on YouTube show the highlights when the equipment is working perfectly and the big fish are biting.  Jonny’s live videos are much more realistic and similar to my experiences.

 

As for me,  I’m addicted.  I’ve had FFS since the Spring of 2022.  It makes fishing much more interesting knowing what’s down there and how the fish are reacting.  Do I catch more fish with it?  Not yet.  I do catch fish I wouldn’t have caught without it.   I also know that I waste time messing with it and trying to catch fish that are not biting.  Over time I’m sure I’ll get more efficient with it.  
 

 

[padon]

5 hours ago, casts_by_fly said:

I upgraded from a Helix 7 to a Helix 9 with mega live back in the winter/spring and have been using it for four months now.  I'm in a trolling motor kayak, not a big boat, and mine is on a pole mount, not the trolling motor.  I'm a 'weekend' angler as you describe it, though I tend to get out weeknight evenings and some weekend days.  I'll average 1 days a week from March through October, though its concentrated a bit in the spring and late summer.

 

So far, I really like it.  Its taken me about 4 months (75-100 hours on the water) to get to a point where I'm dialing in the settings and knowing what I'm looking at.  I still have some ways to go, but I can confidently use it to look at cover and see fish swimming.  I can track my lure some of the time.  I've used it once to target a school of fish and actively catch one from it (they were perch).  I don't use it like you see the pros do on TV- casting to a school of bass and watching them hit your lure on the screen.  I have a ways to go before I'm there and I don't know that it will be possible in the kayak.  Its really hard to track moving fish.  Its also really hard to track stationary fish when the boat is tail swinging when spotlocked.  You have to find them, make a cast to them, then adjust the pole mid-cast as the boat swings around.  I need to be an octopus to do that.  In calm water with no wind that's different and possible.  Target lock might be the solution, but for another $1500 I'm not there yet.

 

What I use it for most right now, is when I'm fishing down the bank and want to see what the slope looks like or where the grass is growing or what the cover looks like ahead.  You can do that with side or down imaging, but then you're running over it and not fishing it.  Also in my kayak limited by an electric motor motoring around to graph spots is a waste of battery and time (my two limiting factors on the water).

 

Has it gotten me fish I wouldn't have caught otherwise?  Yes, a couple.  I talked about it in a recent trip report (the beauty of small places) where I used live imaging to see what the grasslines looked like and decided I could fish a big crankbait to hit the right depth.  I caught two that way.  I wouldn't have considered a deep crankbait in a small lake (practically a pond) for that use.  As I use it more I expect I will find other opportunities where it contributes.  I have an idea for it that I will be trying in the near future, so watch this space.

 

What can't it do- show you inside a weed bed.  You can dial it in to show you individual strands of milfoil on their own but once you get to that front edge of the grass bed you're done.  If the fish are inside the grass you might as well turn it off.  That said, I figured I'd be done using it here once the grass grew up.  That's true in a couple lakes around but I don't use a regular FF there either.  At this point in time, I load it on the boat every trip and just turn it on.  I'll fish the way I want to fish and every now and then glance at it.  If the fishing is slow I might go play with it for a bit to take a break.

 

Is it worth the money?  Only you can answer that.  I had a helix 7 which couldn't take megalive.  I wanted to stay HBird.  Using as much mounting equipment as I could, selling my Helix 7, and buying a Helix 9/megalive/pole mount netted out just over $3k.  If you have a compatible head unit already then you can do it for half that.  We happened to have a really great bonus this past year and I decided to splurge on myself a little bit.  

thanks for the well thought out reply.what your describing is what i would use the 360 for. alot of our lakes have grass out to 15 feet or so. id like to be able to see poinys or cuts in grass before iget there. gravel or rock on the edge of grass. also when i pull up on a way point that is a rock pile or brush pile, id know exactly which direction and how far to cast, i could see fish although not their reaction. obviously it wouldnt be much help with suspended fish. idk i could end up with both at some point but but more than money its lack of deck space that causes me concern,

1 hour ago, Tennessee Boy said:

Check out the Fish The Moment YouTube channel.  Jonny Shultz did some recent live videos from the lake with video from his electronics.  Most of the videos you see on YouTube show the highlights when the equipment is working perfectly and the big fish are biting.  Jonny’s live videos are much more realistic and similar to my experiences.

 

As for me,  I’m addicted.  I’ve had FFS since the Spring of 2022.  It makes fishing much more interesting knowing what’s down there and how the fish are reacting.  Do I catch more fish with it?  Not yet.  I do catch fish I wouldn’t have caught without it.   I also know that I waste time messing with it and trying to catch fish that are not biting.  Over time I’m sure I’ll get more efficient with it.  
 

 

i watch all of jonnys videos. great that he shows its a process and not always an easy one.

[casts_by_fly]

6 minutes ago, padon said:

thanks for the well thought out reply.what your describing is what i would use the 360 for. alot of our lakes have grass out to 15 feet or so. id like to be able to see poinys or cuts in grass before iget there. gravel or rock on the edge of grass. also when i pull up on a way point that is a rock pile or brush pile, id know exactly which direction and how far to cast, i could see fish although not their reaction. obviously it wouldnt be much help with suspended fish. idk i could end up with both at some point but but more than money its lack of deck space that causes me concern,

i watch all of jonnys videos. great that he shows its a process and not always an easy one.

 

live is a better tool than 360 I think if you are a visual person and can put the pieces together in your head. With 360, you get a picture on the screen of what’s around you but there is a lag of the rotation time. That’s fine for structure but doesn’t help with fish. It might show you fish were there when the beam hit them, but they probably aren’t there now. With live, you can see a real time image.  And as you turn the pole you build the 3d image around you but you have to kinda see it in your head or picture it below the water in your head. Humminbird has a good photo I copied below. 3d shows you the snapshot in the photo as it was. Live gives you all of the cuts at the same time live but you have to put those cuts together and think like in the picture. 
 

 

Here are a couple pictures from a recent outing. With the side and down imaging you can build the picture and then back off and see it live. The live image is sitting parallel to the edge so it shows as a clean break. If you sit perpendicular you can look at the cuts also (or I could have turned the transducer 90 degrees). 

 

 

this is a rock/rock pile from straight on with me sitting deep and looking shallow. As you scan left and right you can see the ridges in the rock and if there are any fish on it. 
 

[padon]

i need to get in the boat with somebody who has both and compare them. 

[casts_by_fly]

I'd offer to show you live but I'm in a kayak so unless you're in a kayak next to it that's going to be tough.  If you're interested though, shoot me a message.  We're not that far apart.

[Woody B]

I've had several people ask about my sonar, and took a few of them out from the dock for a look around.  I suppose I'm more approachable than someone with a nice $80 to $100K fiberglass boat.   I'm not an expert, but if anyone near me wants a ride along and look at the screens is welcome to.  

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, Woody B said:

I'm not an expert, but if anyone near me wants a ride along and look at the screens is welcome to.  

What kind of snacks ya got???

[A-Jay]

10 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

What kind of snacks ya got???

Krispy Kremes apparently ~ 

 

 

A-Jay

[gunsinger]

I've got a buddy who fishes with Livescope.  He's only had it about a year or so but he was able to target fish fairly quickly.  I've actually watched him ID a fish and drop the lure right on his head.  Sometimes I wish I had it.  Other times it just seems like video game fishing.  As a weekend angler, I don't see it in my future unless I hit the lottery. 

 

Which reminds me......

[Fishin Dad]

I have seen Livescope both through the ice and open water.   It is amazing and a great tool.   I opted not to out it on my new boat last year.  I do have 360, which is enough electronics for me.  I just don’t want to go fishing and look at a screen any more than I already do.  I know it would be fun and a great learning tool, but,
Computers at work, phones all day, tv at home……………I fish to try to escape all of that.  I fish small tourneys around home and with my buddies and family.   If I need that to win, I will be fine finishing where I do.  

[Susky River Rat]

Being able to watch something real time react to your bait no matter what the water clarity or depth  has to be an insane. Like anything else you need to be able to use it proficiently. People are catching more and bigger fish than ever with this. I think those who figure it out have a huge advantage over those who don’t have it.  For me I love the thrill of that hit not expecting it. 
 

I do not have it. It’s not my cup of tea. I can’t answer if you will be able to use it to the capabilities you need make it feel worth it to you. 

[padon]

6 hours ago, Fishin Dad said:

I have seen Livescope both through the ice and open water.   It is amazing and a great tool.   I opted not to out it on my new boat last year.  I do have 360, which is enough electronics for me.  I just don’t want to go fishing and look at a screen any more than I already do.  I know it would be fun and a great learning tool, but,
Computers at work, phones all day, tv at home……………I fish to try to escape all of that.  I fish small tourneys around home and with my buddies and family.   If I need that to win, I will be fine finishing where I do.  

yeah im kind of leaning the same way. i like the idea of 360 for knowing that im lined up correctly on the structure / cover and am effectively hitting it with my casts. but that tap tap at the end of the line is a big part of fishing for me.

[Dirtyeggroll]

For bass fishing? You certainly have to put the time in to know how to use it. What you’re looking at, how to line it up and the situations where it’s useful. It’s a tool that requires skill for it to be effective. Time that not every “weekend” angler needs to put in to satisfactorily catch fish. Once the skill is met, honestly, 360 becomes obsolete as it’s easy enough to scan around and make a mental picture of the bottom and a mental picture of what 360 offers. 360 really only tells you exactly where cover is if your boat is not moving. The skill needed for 360 is less than that of a live imaging system and is still highly useful for one that hasn’t developed the skill to use live imaging.

 

For panfish (schooling crappie, bluegill, etc), it really is as easy as troll around and find the school, point live at it and change your presentation until they start to react. The skill is much much less for this and the added benefit to the naive user for schooling panfish really is huge.

 

Summary: the effectiveness of live imaging systems to really benefit bass fishing requires time to develop skill.

 

I’ve spent about 18 months with a live imaging system and about 3 years with Mega 360. If I could only keep one, it’d be a hard decision, but it’d probably be live. 6 months ago I would have said 360, but since I’ve become more familiar with live and the hand-eye skill to quickly scan around, I think I could now create the same mental image 360 produces.

 

This is coming from a guy that fishes on average twice per month.

[gim]

1 hour ago, Dirtyeggroll said:

For bass fishing?

I am going to refrain from commenting on this specifically about bass fishing.

 

For ice fishing, its deadly and there's no doubt it has increased harvest on panfish to alarming levels.  I know that most people on this forum do not ice fish or live in the land of ice fishing, so maybe you don't care.  What it does is greatly reduce the amount of time and number of holes that need to be drilled through ice in order to find a school of fish in the basin.  They are found in a fraction of the time they used to be.  And since ice anglers are almost exclusively meat hunters, all those fish die (as opposed to bass, which are mostly released).  Ice fishing has far more pressure than open water fishing does up here.

 

In the muskie realm, its banned in professional tournaments.  Muskies stick out like a truck on live sonar.  Some muskie anglers just slowly go around looking for one before they make a cast.  Its like zombie fishing for muskies.  Luckily every muskie caught is released so there's minimal impact on the population itself, other than making the fish harder to catch which is similar to bass fishing.

[Glenn]

They are too expensive for my budget.  Same goes for the new generation of trolling motors, lithium batteries, etc.

 

Seems this sport is dividing into the haves and have nots.

 

I just want to go fishing.

 

[TnRiver46]

11 minutes ago, Glenn said:

They are too expensive for my budget.  Same goes for the new generation of trolling motors, lithium batteries, etc.

 

Seems this sport is dividing into the haves and have nots.

 

I just want to go fishing.

 

[Susky River Rat]

3 hours ago, gimruis said:

the muskie realm, its banned in professional tournaments.  Muskies stick out like a truck on live sonar.  Some muskie anglers just slowly go around looking for one before they make a cast.  Its like zombie fishing for muskies.  Luckily every muskie caught is released so there's minimal impact on the population itself, other than making the fish harder to catch which is similar to bass fishing

This is why I have stopped musky fishing around here. It’s almost become a joke if you have live scope and becoming impossible I’d you do not. 

[CrashVector]

Forward facing sonar is for n00bs that can't find fish with skill and knowledge, so they resort to video gaming them to compensate for their lack of skill.