Another exciting piece from Lowrance. So, we talked about this in a previous podcast. So, we have the Garmin, right? They’ve got their live system. And Humminbird, we talked about them already too. Humminbird is doing their live. Lowrance is the third and last to come in of the three big major brands that most of us fish. They’re coming out, I think they call it LiveSight, for Lowrance.
Fishing Tackle Retailer shared an article with us (https://fishingtackleretailer.com/lowrance-activetarget-dont-set-the-hook-til-you-feel-the-bite/). They had some interviews with Edwin Evers and Edwin Evers basically said, ‘I’m even more excited that I can see when a fish approaches me lure but doesn’t bite.’ He says, ‘I can try different retrieves or a different bait and often catch that very same fish on my next cast.’
So, think about it. We’ve talked about like kind of what it looks like and what it does, but we never really talked about kind of like what that means, you know, for a guy like me that’s out fishing, and maybe a guy like you. I don’t know. You’re out fishing and you’re throwing these baits and you’re not getting anything, right?
Is there fish in this area? Are they interested in it at all? Are they coming up to it? You know, like, we don’t have any information, right? So, now with these lives systems, that personally I can’t afford. But with these live systems now, like he’s saying, you can see that fish come up to your bait. Whether it be, you know, you need to suddenly slow it down or speed it up or whatever you’re doing. Right?
Like, when you’re ice fishing and you’re seeing a lake trout, right? You see it, you mark that lake trout, and then you just start burning that bait, right? So, this is just that one extra thing that gives you that little bit of an edge, and maybe more information. Because I’m all about information, right? As much information as possible to know that I’m throwing the right thing, am I getting nibbles, am I getting bites, you know? This is perfect.
And he even says, you know, imagine looking at your sonar, see the lure tracking back to the boat, and watching it as it approaches a brush pile, a grass bed, or other cover structure. Suddenly, a bass darts from the cover and closes in on your bait. Like, and that just sums it up, right?
You know, so, they’re offering three viewing options just like all the other guys. So, you can set it for forward, which is in front of your boat, down, and scout mode. And scout mode is pretty cool because it offers just this wide view of kind of everything.
So, forward and down allows you to track fish in front or below the boat. The live sonar transducer and the scout mode offers ultra-wide. So, you’re not just getting the small viewing area, so you’re getting kind of out and down, this gives you just all out. It’s kinda like, you know, think 360, I guess, is the best way to talk about it. But it’s only giving you, I believe, a 180 view.
So, it gives you this ultra-wide overheard view of structure and fish activity in front of the transducer. Perfect for finding bait balls and big schools of fish. Of course, you know, lumber and trees and brush piles and everything else down there.
When you don’t have these products, yeah, you really are just going by luck, right? Or, you know, things that have worked in the past or, I mean, you’re just trying stuff, right? You have no idea how fish are reacting to it at all.
So, the only downside to the Lowrance, and so far, Humminbird is the only one that’s been able to get rid of this, and that is that black box. So, that black box is gone for Humminbird. It looks like Garmin, I could be wrong, I’m pretty sure Garmin still has the black box, and now Lowrance. So, they’re also going to be using that black box. So, unfortunately, just another piece of hardware that you have to install with your transducer and, of course, the compatible unit.
So, if you want to know more, go to Lowrance.com and you’ll learn a little bit more about it. So, all three companies now, it doesn’t matter who you go with, are going to offer it. And the cool part about this is, so, now like everybody is getting it, so you can go with whatever you want. So, if you want to go with Lowrance units with the Lowrance trolling motor, now you can go with the Lowrance LiveSight and you know that everything is kinda gonna be compatible.
It’s kinda like me with my cell phones, right? You pick an operating system -- or in this case, a manufacturer -- and their particular operating system is supposed to integrate with all their stuff flawlessly, right? It’s like having a PlayStation playing all your video games versus having a PC playing all your video games, right? With the PC, you’ve got a lot more to look at. Yeah, you might get a little bit better of a game-playing experience, but you really got to dial in all your stuff. With this, you can just pick a manufacturer, go with their stuff, and it should be relatively dialed in. But we’ll see.
Now, again, they are still doing, it sounds like, if I’m getting this, they’re still doing the old NMEA 2000 kinda hookup (BNC connecors). I may be wrong there, but the NMEA 2000, if I recall correctly, does not have the bandwidth that the Humminbird network does. So, you’re talking about a LAN cable. And if there’s anybody familiar with networking, you can get usually probably about 100 megabytes a second. Most things now are doing about a gigabyte a second, if not more.
So, yeah, that’s the new Lowrance thing.