mount to trolling motor or not ?
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mount to trolling motor or not ?
I chose to use a separate mount for these reasons. I have a terrova trolling motor and with the corrections required when using spot lock I can keep the LiveScope pointed at the structure I’m fishing. I also had concern that the transducer cable would be susceptible to damage after watching my trolling motor wrap it’s self up and then unwind. I also will spot lock and then scan with my LiveScope and you would be surprised how many times I have found other structure holding fish in the vicinity of the spot I’m fishing. If you have an opportunity to fish with someone who has it on the trolling motor and someone who uses a separate mount then it will demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of each. If you want to come fish with me you are welcome to. After looking at where you are from I’ll come over there and we’ll go fishing in my boat 😉.
Depends on your trolling motor and your ability level honestly. Slower turning electric steer trolling motors like the Terrova or the like don’t work real well with transducer on the trolling motor. Same with if you are inexperienced and plan on fishing from spot lock, will be better on a pole or other independent mount. But its a no brainer with a cable steer or Ultrex to put it on the trolling motor though.
A buddy called me yesterday knowing that i've decided on mounting mine pole style. Him & his brother both have theirs mounted on the trolling motor, but neither have spot lock. Both took their boats out Wednesday when it was so windy & said it was pretty much useless because they had to constantly be on the trolling motor fighting the wind & say they'll be changing to a pole too after they initially tried to get me to mount mine on the trolling motor.
Like I mentioned, it depends on ability level. It doesn’t take long looking around the tournament trails and YouTube etc. to see that pretty much everyone that is really successful with Livescope runs it on the trolling motor. As long as I am not in waves so big that they are lifting the trolling motor out of the water, I have no trouble Livescoping with it on the shaft of trolling motor. But that doesn’t right for everyone, not everybody has spent the time that a lot of us have learning to control the boat.
the boat I bought already has a "Seelite " System on it . My delima is how to set up screens on a 1648 war eagle . tough to stow and travel from place to place .
Experience has little to do with it. I bought spot lock so I spend more time fishing and less time messing with the boat. Attaching Live Scope to teh trolling motor means you spend even more time messing with boat control, now with more complexity to point LS. The ultimate set-up is spot lock trolling motor and another trolling motor with navigation (IPilot). Remove teh head. One controls the boat and the other keeps the LS pointing where you want it. But you need deck space to mount both. Buddy has his mounted on a pontoon. He uses a 24' pontoon to guide. No worries about wind pushing hte boat around, LS always points to teh target.
No, don't mount to trolling motor. You spend less time fishing and more time controlling the boat. Let the trolling motor control the boat. That's why you bought it. Now if you can independently control the LS while it's mounted to the TM, thats something different and go for it.
Video of Capps @ Coleman using LS. Notice the TM and the thing to the left of it? LS bracket. In the video they are marking and watching fish while the TM is moving to hold position.
Crappie NOW How To: Garmin LiveScope with Capps and Coleman - YouTube
Never said you couldn't control the boat. I bass fish a lot & have no problem controlling mine either. That being said i'm going to try my hand at crappie too. I came up with an idea although not done yet, but my livescope will be mounted on the upper shaft of my maxxum so that it deploys & stows with the trolling motor. The mount i'm making out of PVC will put the transducer right above the trolling motor lower unit where it will also be protected some but i'll control it myself. It will also work pretty good to cast straight out from boat to spoon fish offshore striper when they're not coming up too. A slight breeze may not be a problem but i think a decent wind will suprize a lot of folks including you & me when trying to stay on a small deep offshore brush pile say 5 0r 6 feet around in 30 plus feet of water whether bass or crappie fishing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdeTXe78Oi4
This is a edited video from the link below.
https://www.crappie.com/crappie/fish...ittle-project/
The link is when I first posted about the project build.
This build uses a Terrova board which allows for the use of a foot pedal with the CoPilot fob.
If you use a power drive V2, just a CoPilot fob.
Additions since then was a Cisco slide mount for easy removal of the assmbly for towing or using the boat cover.
The edited video shows the Livescope mount tracking movement a little better and also shows a fish caught while I was holding a rod off to the side while filming.
Notice the Livescope head moves to stays pointed at the tree independent of the Terrova Tmotor turning to maintain the boats Spotlock position
The second system I put together was for a friend who guides with a pontoon boat and we used the standard V2 boat mount since he had the floor space for the full size mount.