2 Forward Facing Units?

If one is good; is two better? Recently, I was in the boat with the crappie fishing team of Jerry Vanderpool and Jim Clary during the National Crappie League tournament on Lake of the Ozarks. These two anglers were using two Garmin LiveScope units utilizing two units with forward facing sonar. Vanderpool and Clary have a unique setup for the front of the boat where 2 forward facing sonar units are being used at the same time.
Taking a look at the bow of their boat you see the unique electronics setup giving the crappie fishing team of Vanderpool and Clary with a two-view independent live screen view. The live viewing consisting of 2 Garmin units on two separate pedestal mounts and two Livescope transducers on two different hand controlled turrent mounts.

While I have seen other two sonar unit setups for using 2 sonar units before, this is the only one that utilizes a portable second unit that’s portable. That’s right; the second unit is totally portable including the power source I believe was inside a plastic storage box. It literally sets on the bow of the boat and the Livescope homemade transducer turrent mount attached to the front deck of the boat.



Wait, what? Yep, the total portable set up is built from PVC pipe and fittings for the homemade transducer turrent mount. I didn’t ask them the cost for making the homemade transducer turrent, but under $35 dollars is my guess. It simply attaches or can be removed before, during or after getting done fishing.

So how does Vanderpool and Clary fish using the 2 Garmin sonar units and 2 independent Livescope transducers? In the aluminum boat I got in as they were fishing National Crappie League open tournament on Lake of the Ozarks Vanderpool was sitting on the right side front deck and Clary the left side. Vanderpool was hand controlling a manufactured, store bought turrent with his right hand while controlling the boat with the Minn Kota trolling motor with his left foot. Clary on the left side front deck was controlling his homemade hand controlled turrent with his left hand.

Vanderpool was using the center-front store bought manufactured mount with a Garmin unit that was attached to his turrent to control the direction of the sonar beam while Clary used the homemade turrent connected to the second Garmin to control the direction of his Livescope transducer.

As the crappie fishing team trolled around under the control of Vanderpool on the trolling motor the pair would constantly scan the area for crappie. In this situation on Lake of the Ozarks they were scanning for roaming crappie. Once one saw a crappie the trolling motor direction pointed towards the crappie allowing the angler to cast past the crappie and bring the lure to the crappie or at times the angler would simply drop the lure to the crappie allowing it to bite it.

Now before you run out and make your own or purchase everything to have a second sonar unit and transducer it’s important to point out that only one person is controlling the boat. Truth is it’s a lot harder than you think to fish this way; of course Vanderpool and Clary made it look easy. Plus the cost is double of just having a single sonar unit and transducer turrent setup.

Is there way too much electronics in tournament crappie fishing? Right now most of the crappie tournaments are dominated utilizing forward facing sonar. The real question is how do you really want to go fishing and catch crappie.