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[Danny Lang]

Fellows I am having a hard time finding crappie for my livescope, can someone walk me through finding crappie maybe fishing a lake for the first time. Are you looking for structure to scope on, or you looking for roaming fish, if so how do I find them.

[keeferfish]

Not sure I'm the best person to answer because sometimes I find them and there are others not so much. I look in areas I would fish before I had the scope. Also sometimes in the Spring I don't bother turning it on.

For me the moving fish are very hard to catch to say the least. Most willing crappie I find are staying pretty still and that would be on or off structure.

They look like dots and any worth trying to catch will be bigger than your jig. The pick looks like a brush pile but the fish were off mostly of the brush and there are about 9 or more nice crappie over 11 inches. I caught a few of them. I'm sure better answers to come and Good Luck.

[Danny Lang]

I have been dock shooting and fishing treetops for so many years now I have lost some of my finding fish confidence, have not had to look for them in years. Now I have livescope, I want to learn to find and catch roaming crappie.

[Ketchn]

if the lake is new to you it might be a chore , struggling on new waters is pretty common , if you know the lake frequent areas that have produced fish in the past at this time of year , LS is great if you are on fish to be sure , but as we all know it isn't exactly the silver bullet that killed the werewolf
as stated above the roamers are sometimes quite difficult to chase down and often seem highly reluctant to bite for whatever reason .
water temp might be the answer , look at it closely as you search , sometimes 4 to 5 degrees warmer than the rest of the water this time of year will be holding lots of post spawn and pre spawn and actually spawning fish . if your waters are real clear ,you best stay back off them unless the water depth is extreme , they tend to scatter like cock roaches when the lights come on if you roll up on top of them and they can see you ....
time of day might come into play as well , early this time of year and late brings fish into the mode to move into areas that they might not have been in midday .
beyond all that , you could always ask around locally , some folks might point you in the right direction at the spot you are visiting , it could happen ...

[Les Young]

What little i know is kind of dangerous lol but i idle around scouting with side imaging looking for offshore trees, brush piles etc.& marking way points from the helix unit at the console. I set the helix at the bow on 50 foot range with casting rings turned on to 30 foot range to easily show when i'm getting close to any waypoints. I then use livescope to find the waypoint i'm wanting to fish. If i'm moving between waypoints that aren't all that far apart or just moving along a stretch of bank that i've been on before but never really scouted good i set my forward range to 60 feet & depth to whatever depth needed to see bottom & ease along at a pretty quick speed with the trolling motor & have found all kinds of deeper off shore structure doing it. On one local lake that i fish quite a bit I've found several offshore submerged whole trees loaded with crappie on the old river channel drop that i've caught a bunch of fish off of.

[Slabprowler]

Time spent with it is your best friend.
The more you do it the better you will get at it .catching roaming fish is a blast but that takes getting accurate with your cast
And lining things up to be able to see your bait and the fish. I do a lot of scanning with the scope with the trolling motor on fairly high speed to cover lots of water sweeping the live scope as I go along until I find structure or a fish then I slow down and investigate it. I keep my range set at 50’ and on a new lake I start out going down the bank about 40’ off of the actual shore line that way I’m scanning about 90’ as I travel. I have read/seen a lot about what keeper fish look like but that’s no always the case unless mine isn’t set up right I have caught fish that didn’t look a whole lot bigger than my bait and it be a 12’ fish . As said most crappie that you find with be just setting their and not making much movement if you see lots of movement prolly not crappie unless they are chasing bait or moving school.

[BitByLivescope]

Fellows I am having a hard time finding crappie for my livescope, can someone walk me through finding crappie maybe fishing a lake for the first time. Are you looking for structure to scope on, or you looking for roaming fish, if so how do I find them.

If I’m on a lake that doesn’t have visible timber I haven’t fished much, I use the fishing chart or map on my Garmin to find the fallen timber areas. I use side imagin some, but most of the time I use the Livescocope (while trolling) shooting about 40 to 50 feet in forward view scanning slowly from side to side to find standing underwater timber, fallen timber and brush tops or structure. Once I get within 20 feet of found structure I’ll zoom in to about 20 feet forward view, mark it as a waypoint, and start fishing if fish are present. If no fish, find next structure. Doing this I have about 300 waypoints marked on my lake. When I go to the lake all I have to do is go to whichever area I want to fish, pull up to waypoint, drop Livescope in the water. If no fish present just go on to the next waypoint not wasting time on points that don’t show fish. Takes lots of practice! Crappie kinda move around like cows grazing, moving different areas pretty regularly. But, I seem to catch em year round with my method. With practice, you’ll be able tell the difference between crappie, bass, and catfish by the their shape and the way they move or swim on your screen….but…it still don’t mean they will bite!!! Hope this helps…

[washuey]

I fish in FL where the lakes are basically large bowls. Just pick a likely spot, look around with your LS and see if see fish. If not, try another location. Right now, 4/22, it is pretty tough finding suspended crappie. Probably time to get the worm rods out.

[Bricks]

What size screen are you using? I am in the process of learning Mega Live I equate it to when I was learning SI on a 12 inch screen kept my view at only 50-55 feet, Mega Live I am staying under 40 feet until I start to understand more of what I am seeing. I am constantly playing with my settings, find a piece of structure lock on it and start adjusting until i can get the best picture possible while looking at it from different sides. If close enough I will go down to 20-30 feet racking my poor old brain.

One thing I was horribly bad at when I first started SI is my vision would lock onto the structure instead of looking around for fish, now I don`t care what the structure is I am constantly scanning for fish with my eyes.

[BON TEMPS]

Fish holding to structure being very still and having a slight tilt or slant face down are sacalait. Roaming ones are harder to distinguish but they dont waddle or swerve like a catfish and usually dont go as fast as a bass. Have seen sacalait swim in a follow the leader formation on and off structure like a parade.

TIME ON THE WATER staring at the screen will hone your skills nothing else. Go out with the attitude I am not fishing today I am learning how to use this equipment today.

Bon Temps !!