Forward-Facing Sonar: More Observations After 2 Years of Learning. Garmin Livescope; Lowrance Active Target; Humminbird Mega Live
After two seasons with the Garmin version of forward-facing live-action sonar my thrill of using this technology is still strong and building.
The learning curve is steep, but the climb well worth it! Whether Garmin’s Livescope, Lowrance’s Active Target or Humminbird’s Mega Live, much of what we are all learning applies to all three. My first year with Livescope was lesson after lesson…face palm after face palm…I could practically hear Red Foreman from That ‘70’s Show sneering at me and growling, “Dumb Ass.”
Didn’t take long for me to figure out that I needed more juice. So I added a lithium “house” battery dedicated to the Livescope and the ultra-high resolution GPSMap screen which demands more amperage than the EchoMap units. OK, so my first lithium house battery was too small at 23 amp-hours. Even with a toggle switch to power off the “black box” computer when not using the live-action functions… So, I bumped to a 54 amp-hour battery which lasts for more hours than fit into one day of fishing.
Swimbait Walleye I Found Cruising the Shallows on the Garmin Livescope
My Canadian “aiming device” for sweeping the beam was retired after a few months and my approach simplified. While most set-ups require either bow or gunnel mounted aiming capability, my tiller boat layout encouraged me to just move my transducer to the shaft of my seldom-used tiller electric motor. That made it easy to deploy, easy to aim 360 degrees and still lets me steer the boat with my bow troller. It’s not a perfect system, but none of the other options is 100% perfect either.
I’ve been noticing that many of the early adopters of this technology have added a second unit. One for the bow, and one in the main cockpit zone. That provides live-action wherever you fish in the boat and accommodates 2 anglers. And this is not just for the “super deluxe” boats out there. A fellow who lives near me runs two Livescopes on an old ’96 aluminum boat!
I realize that tens of thousands of anglers have balked at the price of this new sonar technology. But there are hundreds of thousands of anglers who have taken the leap-of-faith and who will now never consider fishing without live-action sonar. To the point that “just one” set-up isn’t good enough. I pretty much always fish alone so won’t need to spend for a 2nd set up. Still, I can’t even imagine casting a jig without first knowing I’m casting to a fish. You’ll see guys like me driving around without ever touching a rod until they/we have “targets” to cast at.
THE WAKEUP CALL
I started in the Livescope game under the presumption that this was going to be the best thing ever to help us catch those neutral and negative walleyes. You know the ones…you can mark them easily enough but just can’t get them to bite. Man, those drop-shot rigs and NED rigs and slip bobbers are going to FORCE unwilling walleyes to open up and strike.
What I’ve learned instead is that off-bite fish are off-bite no matter what kind of sonar you find them with. And though non-moving baits are a big deal in the bass fishing game, they are only marginally important in the walleye equation. Sure, most of us do more drop-shotting and NED rigging than we did in the past. But it’s getting to be more of a Hail Mary when they won’t chomp our “normal” gear. And by “normal gear” I’m talking standard jigs, bobbers, cranks and other moving baits that we cast at willing walleyes!
The wakeup call for me was to recognize that forward-facing sonar is the best method ever devised to seek and find the aggressive—or at least willing—walleyes. Yep, the walleyes we can all catch easily are now even easier because we can see them cruising around NOT belly to the bottom. And now we can see which direction they are swimming and at what speed so we can lead them a bit on our casts.
Last Day Before Ice-Up I Broke Up The Ice at the Ramp with My Truck So I Could Launch...and Livescoped this 8.28 Pounder and Another 10.43 Pounder Just 35 Minutes Apart and On the Same Spotlock...Forward-Scanning Technology is Stunningly Effective!
READING THE FISH
There are a couple angles to this. First, by targeting fish that are actively swimming around a foot or two above bottom we can place our baits where those active fish are apt to notice. Seems like a “Duh” kind of thing to say, but it gets to be a game…cast to the fish that are either higher than the rest or swimming faster than the rest. That puts your lure in front of what are usually the most willing fish.
Another layer to this is to be able to read what species of fish you are chasing. No sense casting at carp all day! Your own individual tuning of your sonar alters the look of the fish a bit, so there is a little skill to it. But if you fish in waters with more carp than walleyes (like my three closest reservoirs), then it’s imperative that you figure out how to avoid everything that isn’t a walleye.
Ranger Boat Pro, Matt Fischer and partner Ty Hinderager won the 2022 Montana Walleye Circuit Team of the Year title. And in the past 5 years they’ve won the Crooked Creek tournament, Canyon Ferry tourney…and the last two summers they outdistanced the field and set a new total weight record at the Tiber tourney (while using the Garmin Livescope system both years). Matt lives near me and has to sort through zillions of carp on our home waters of Holter, Hauser and Canyon Ferry. He says, “It’s easy to see the carp, they have the sparklies” which is his term for how they show up on the Garmin screen.
Lifelong guide, Josh Steinmetz of Helena fishes those same carpy waters while scanning with the Lowrance Live Target and he uses terms like “radiate” and “glow” when describing how easy it is for him to identify and avoid carp. And I can say with confidence that I too can generally tell a carp from a walleye on my screen. Two years and uncountable numbers of carp have trained me! What originally stood out for me is the helmet-like hard skull of the carp that sparkles and radiates.
No matter what species of fish are mixing in with your walleyes, it’s vitally important that you learn to separate them from walleyes. This forward-scanning technology is at its best when applied directly to the right fish.
FISH REACTIONS
Just as important as knowing you are casting at active walleyes is the importance of understanding what the walleyes are thinking. I know this may seem to be a stretch, but a few examples may help clarify. Two years ago, High Country Boats General Manager, Jake Monroe, and tourney partner, Jeff Ingram, were on their way to winning the Crooked Creek tourney using the Lowrance Active Target system. They were getting teased mercilessly by walleyes swimming up to their baits and then not biting…until the guys went into “ice fishing” mode. They paid close attention to what it took to trigger the big females to bite. In that instance the key was to stop working the jigs and simply hover in place—FISH ON!
Just like when ice fishing, dialing in which type of action gets bit is extremely important. I’ve been surprised by how many walleyes will sit under the boat watching my jig until I s-l-o-w-l-y lift like it’s swimming up from bottom. And the walleye will slowly follow until I pause—BANG!
Schoolie Males Like This One May Be "Pushed" By Your Boat. The Group With This Little Guy Wouldn't Let Me Closer Than 45 Feet. Yet We All Catch Plenty of Walleye Right Under Our Boats...Still Learning When The Boat Matters and When It Doesn't
A walleye reaction that I’m noticing WAY more often than I want to is that they get “pushed” by the boat. I’m mostly on gin clear waters and the fish can definitely see me coming. Schooled fish are most noticeably getting pushed by my boat, but individual fish do it too. First time I noticed this happening was on a big school of easy males during the pre-spawn a couple years ago. They would not let my boat get closer than 45 feet. If I got too close, they would move away and stay in the 45-60 foot range. They didn’t get spooked enough to stop biting, they just got more interested in avoiding my boat which had them scattering in all directions rather than hanging together.
On the flip side, even after being pushed a bit, once settled down, the walleyes will often approach closer than 45 feet as long as I’m spot-locked and unmoving. I was fishing side-by-side with 2019 Canyon Ferry tourney champ Cory Novak and his father Kurt while a nice school of eaters spread out and milled around our boats. This was after we’d already pushed them up next to shore for a half-hour whupping. They eventually disbursed from their grouping to mill around our boats—biting the entire time. Of course, just because I’ve pushed around some schoolie males and they still bit doesn’t mean all fish or individual unschooled fish will still bite. But it’s pretty common to drag following fish back to the boat where we try to trigger the bite. Still, I can’t tell you how many hundreds of fish have swum away as I’ve invaded their space, never to be seen again. Were those missed opportunities? It’s hard to know for certain because just as “pushing” is common, it’s also common for walleye to let the boat pass overhead which shows them on any 2D sonar. And then they bite a vertical presentation.
I now approach areas where I hope to find fish slowly under electric power--like we’ve always done--but one notch more sneaky. No point in running ‘em off before I even get a shot at ‘em!
Here’s a quick list of forward-facing live-action sonar tips:
- Be mentally prepared to suffer more rejection than you’ve ever experienced. Keeping mentally focused on success is crucial! Don’t pout.
- Find targets before you cast. Try to make every cast a planned event.
- Cast to the fish that are either higher than the rest or swimming faster than the rest. Those are generally the active feeders. Of course, you are also going to cast to the biggest fish you see on screen—Duh.
- Be aware of timing—cast well ahead of moving fish so your lure is in place when the fish gets there. Moving fish are biters!
- When they reject you and swim away, sometimes you can pull them back in with aggressive jig strokes or jerking action.
- You will find lots more suspended walleye than you ever thought. Don’t ignore marks above bottom. But don’t waste the day on them either.
- Expect to get lots of follows and expect that you will need to modify your retrieve speed and/or action to turn follows into bites.
- Fish that throw the hook may surprise you and keep chasing to bite again. Don’t reel in immediately to check bait/plastic after pooching one.
- It’s easy to get hung up on schooled “12 inch rats.” Sure, you can learn a lot from them, but you seldom pull quality fish out of schooled rats. Move on!
- Be amazed at how one day a school of walleye will bite anything you throw and the next day just look at your offerings like a kid looking at spinach for dinner. Sometimes I’ve still been able to find the one thing they’ll bite.
- Learn to identify walleye as well as imposters. Spend your time on fish that matter!
- Dial-in strike triggering approaches while watching on screen. Treat it like ice fishing--at least until you figure out the best triggering action.
- Be careful about “pushing” walleye in clear water. They see your boat, and sometimes they care!