I hate livescope

[fredo]

Golf WITH Livescope

[Grainraiser]

I have always felt I understood all of what you said and it makes sense. What causes me to question your comment on overfishing is that I have read a fair number of comments on line about waters that used to be very crappie productive that are not so productive anymore. An isolated comment or two is one thing but reading a fair number of such comments makes me wonder. I can't say I have experienced it personally because I just don't take a lot of fish at a time anyway. There's times I go out and don't spend as much time "fishing" as just paddling around enjoying time on the water and observing nature. That's hard to do if you're staring at a screen.

Based on my experience crappie lakes go in cycles. My favorite local crappie lake will have great years and some down years. One year the lake was 5ft high during the spawn and you could not find them because there was thousands of acres of new spawning spots that you could not access by boat. The lake exploded with crappie three years after that spawn. The same exact lake experience a severe drought back 2012 and the lake was 8ft low. They were easy to catch but it ruined the spawn and fishing was horrible for a few years due to the bad spawn. Crappie are prolific breeders so it is pretty hard to fish them out of a decent size lake even with Livescope. You will be shocked at how many times I have marked fish and they will not touch a jig or a minnow. Like stated I am not a screen watcher. Once I find a school a fish I marked the distance and depth and start casting/pitching to them. I don't have to be screen watcher to use livescope.

[wanafish]

Slab you sure can start a good discussion, with a lot of different options. If we all like the same things it would be a very boring world. I personally don’t have live scope and probably never will. It is just not my thing for those that use it that is ok with me. As Slab said as long as we all go by the laws and the limit regulations that is what matters. How we catch them is each to his on especially if we are enjoying Mother Nature. I think that some lakes can get to much pressure but not from the electronics on the boats. I know years ago I was like a lot of others and talked about how many we caught and what lakes we were fishing. That is when I saw a major increase of boats on different lakes I fished. I don’t see many lakes mentioned anymore but still some great pictures of the fish caught on a trip.

[Jamesdean]

There is a reason they have bag limits, one lake I fish back in the early 80`s Crappie was 50 late 80`s it was lowered to 25. Early 90`s it was lowered to 15 and has fluctuated between 15-10 over the years.

I can totally understand this, and it's not always the ones following the guidelines set by the Fish and Game Commision. Just a year or so ago there were write-ups of several folks who were caught with two or three of those 100+ quart coolers over flowing with crappie. Limit was 15 per person, and one group of 2 or three fisherman were well over their limit by a couple hundred fish Unscrupulous folks like that sure don't help the fisheries.

[Hammmerhead]

My take on it all. Going from Spider rigging and pulling to full time single pole fishing. Its a slow day, so I wrote a short essay



Before the scope:
Coffee, Chatting with your buddy on the deck about this and that and maybe the upcoming spawn, checking out the scenery and just tooling around occasional watching the rods and wondering what the day might bring. No anxiety, no real concentration for that matter, just relaxation kicked back in your chair and good times. Always thrilled to bring home a good mess of legal eaters and heaven forbid, a limit day.


After the Scope:

Once you get a scope and learn how to really use it, the rods racks are gone and glory be, no more 12-16 poles in a rack on the side of your boat, countless lost jigs and always re-rigging, gone! You're now efficient every outing with a single pole and a good mess of eater's doesn't cut it ever again. You don't need waypoints anymore. You know the areas the fish will be in and you can scan 500 feet of water around you effectively in 15 min. You can now put the pressure on the fish immediately without the limits of side scan or sonar.

You start chasing the bigger roamers and the bigger muddy bellies laying low in cover on the bottom. Its now a bit of work and concentration punching the screen button viewing 50-70 feet out scanning for that giant and then bring it back in to 30 all while keeping your alignment in the awful wind and your approach very slow and stealthy. You now know you will only get one presentation on that big girl and that will be it, so you will be relentless even regulating your breathing without knowing it. Rejecting the obvious junk fish while looking at that one big, big drum that sure looks like a big girl at your angle and very well could be that 3lb white that you will never know until you try. Your eyes are tired, your neck is tired, you now have a mild case of Tennis elbow from reaching with that 16 foot pole all day and you're wondering if its just because you're old. You now have a back issue from standing on your deck with that butt seat instead of kicked back in that chair with your coffee from the pulling and spider days.

Next thing you know, it's all you're doing is out there cherry picking the giant fish because your freezer is already full and you haven't even eaten all your spring fish that are pushing 6-8 months old. The eaters are too easy catch and boring to mess with now. Then with your new obsession/addiction you stop inviting newb friends that don't fish often, because you know how limited your day will be teaching the pitch, and them not understanding being very, very quiet with limited movement in the boat because of your very shallow lake. The relaxed fun has now shifted to a personal tournament/grind with yourself every outing. Less than 10 really good fish on a tough windy day, you're a loser now and you will feel this driving home.





If you're even just decent at the scope, after some time you start to question your own ethics and greed involved because it is so addictive snatching bigs on the water. Seeing the countless "guides" pulling table after table of giants out for customers, day after day staying on them starts to look pretty unappealing. Not to mention every rec fisherman trying to one-up the thousand of other anglers with their pics of their catch on social media. I get it, most people are covered up with work, kids sports, Honey Doo's and taking care of the real matters in life, so your one day is important to bring home some fish. Im guilty of it as any, but it does make me question my actions and my duty for my personal lakes as everyone should ask themself, "when is enough?"

The scope is affecting many of the bigger fish in smaller lakes in the short term and it may affect some of the larger lakes in the long term. I hope the Fish Bio's in our states will be able to catch a decline in time as I don't believe any of our regulated limits factored in every "swinging rod" with a scope pulling limits out on almost any day on the water. If everyone is bringing a limit or big numbers of egg loaded giants in during pre-spawn, which is just around the corner, it cant be all good as healthy cleansing of a lake as so many see it.

[Les Young]

Not much danger in me hurting them much at all because i very rarely take any home to eat & i absolutely love fresh fish. Evidently i do like getting the sore arm & neck though.

[SuperDave336]

Calm down guys.

[Slab]

It's getting hot in here, so I'ma closin' this thread now. Please play nice Y'all.