I have been fishing a 16-17 acre lake recently. I have access to two smaller lakes, totaling 22 more acres. I have been primarily casting from the boat to the bank where there are a few laydowns, etc. The majority of the lake is out in the deeper water and I have no electronics. I am fishing a Pelican 10 foot Bass Raider and have discussed with y’all ways to find structure, etc., in the deeper water. I have the money to purchase a portable Livescope unit but obviously it’s an extravagant purchase. It’s the kind that is self contained and I would be able to remove it from the boat every time and take it on another boat in the future if that arose. I don’t have experience with Livescope, other than watching tons of YouTube videos. I am eat up about getting it and mapping out these little lakes. What do you think?

p.s-I am an old charter boat Captain and I have extensive experience with electronics including Garmin, just not Livescope. 

Livescope isn't really going to map out the lake, although you can most likely do that with whatever Garmin unit you choose that has livescope. The chartplotting features of a traditional sonar unit will allow you to do that.

 

Livescope is best utilized to see a live representation of fish and what they doing as they do it. You can see how they react to your baits.

 

"360" will allow you to see a 360° view if what's around your boat, especially cover and structure and cover. You don't see fish moving in real time, but more of a snapshot every so many seconds.

Nah, just figure out the lakes by fishing them. Everything that Livescope could tell you can also be learned by casting and catching.

Several years ago I purchased a small fish finder from Hawkeye Electronics.   The transducer drops over the side and is suspended by a float.  The display unit is 1/2 again larger than my I-phone.  I bought it solely for my kayaks to ‘map’ structure in the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers.  It has been hands down the best $150 I’ve spent for fishing.  I have been able to find holes, ledges, humps, boulders and other structure that would have otherwise remained hidden.   I’ve even found cover that will remain at least until the next high water event.  I didn’t mind at all transferring the information to a notepad of handdrawn maps until I ‘learned’ their locations.  I fish about 13 different stretches that total around 65 river miles.  I still take the unit with me, especially to those stretches I fish less frequently.  And I’m still finding new spots.

Half the fish in that lake haven't seen a lure until you show up with your scope. Plus it's really fun, and you'll learn a lot. 

On 10/17/2025 at 3:23 PM, Swamp Girl said:

Nah, just figure out the lakes by fishing them. Everything that Livescope could tell you can also be learned by casting and catching.

I don't have FFS.  I don't plan to get FFS.  Never even seen one in person.

 

But, I strongly suspect your statement is off the mark for most.  Even people who don't particularly embrace FFS are effusive in their praise for how much they learn from it.

4 hours ago, Choporoz said:

But, I strongly suspect your statement is off the mark for most.  Even people who don't particularly embrace FFS are effusive in their praise for how much they learn from it.

 

I really only use Livescope for ice fishing, and it has absolutely taught me a lot about fish behavior.  Watching in real time how fish react to your presentation is a great teacher.  Plus it's pretty dang cool watching a pike creep in from the side and get into an ambush position.

 

With that said..

 

@Boondocks Hunter I think you'd be better off buying something with side scan.  Now, I've only really bothered bringing my livescope setup on my kayak once but I wasn't super stoked on it.  In my opinion it works best when you have a really stable platform to work from.  With a small boat and no spot lock you end up drifting around and having to constantly re-aim the beam, it becomes a hassle.  

 

Unless you really want some new toys to play around with, nothing wrong with that.

On 10/17/2025 at 12:23 PM, Swamp Girl said:

Nah, just figure out the lakes by fishing them. Everything that Livescope could tell you can also be learned by casting and catching.

^^^this^^^
Tom

I’m the last person to say ‘don’t buy toy <x>’ for fishing.  If you want it and think you’ll enjoy having it then get it.  That said, I’ve been where you are in that I had a little boat (kayak in my case) and was fishing a lot of smaller lakes that some would even call ponds.  Having it was cool every now and then, but for the smaller lakes you get to a point where you know the whole lake bottom, all the cover, where the fish are generally, etc.  I got to the point where I would leave the FFS and 9” helix off since I had to take them on and off every trip.  I just wouldn’t load it on most of the time at those lakes.  And for 10’ and a lot of grass it won’t be helpful in a large percentage of the lake.

 

My reco would be to get a small unit that you can map out those lakes on your own.  A helix 7 will do it for sure (autochart is HBirds version).  Then go out in the winter when the weeds have died back, turn on autochart, and just go fishing.  It will record while you fish your way around.  When you get bored of fishing, look at the map you made and go over areas you missed to map them.  Go back over areas you mapped once in a perpendicular direction to the first pass.  For 20 acres you can map that out in an afternoon while fishing it.  Then when you get done you have a pretty good contour map and a small FF unit that you can move to the next boat.

On 10/23/2025 at 7:53 PM, casts_by_fly said:

 When you get bored of fishing, ....

What?

@Choporoz Those days where it is tough, the fish aren’t cooperating, you’ve made three laps around a 20 acre lake and cast five baits to every likely spot. Those days when you could just go home or you could play with a toy and learn something. 

Small lake under 20 acres the LMB will be shore cover ambush bass. FFS would be of little help to locate bass in cover and the few that maybe off shore.

I have been using sonar ( flasher to state of the art ) since 1960 and have decades of experience reading single returns. It takes a lot of sonar reading skills to take advantage of FFS, it’s not for everyone.

Example watching MLF the only 2 teams that effectively caught bass off shore were Jacob Wheeler/ Connel and west coast anglers Brent Ehlers/ Lucas. Nearly every team tried but ended up fishing heavy shoreline cover to catch enough bass to make over the cut line. Seeing fish react to a lure watching FFS and catching it is a very different skill set. 

Tom

I saw livescope in use this weekend and wasn’t impressed. I didn’t see any angling skill at all, and the co anglers body language showed boredom after awhile