Thread: Switching baits with livescope

I have tried every color and live minners when they do that but cant find anything to make em commit i have went all the way down to 1/64 if you figure it out then let me know.

If after a couple have done that then I’m changing something. That tells me they are hungry and want to eat, just not what I’m presenting. Might not work but I keep trying.

After 2-3 different changes and several different presentations I’m moving on!

Well now that I have gotten LiveScope it makes me wonder how I ever caught a limit. (But I do know how!)
As I have learned so much more about these fish using forward facing sonar.
One just like you and I these fish are curious by nature so most of the time one or some of them is going to take a look. Some are not going to move off the couch unless you hit them with something.
Have you ever walk in someone’s house or a place that say serves candy or cookies that you love and you’re just not hungry but you look anyway? These fish are no different. They also don’t mind pushing it out of their sight by running it off.
Sometimes it has nothing to do with presentation or color or scent. It’s just they are not hungry or feeding.
But I can tell you this, if you drop a jig minnow or any kind of bait down for that fact and they run off, it’s obvious they don’t like what you have put before them. They are just some days they aren’t hungry while you’re there.
So what do I do when it’s like that. I either go finds some fish that are biting. Turn my side and down scan on and go locate new fishing spots. Fine tune my LiveScope and boat control skills. Or simply enjoy being on the water out of the chaos of this world. But mainly waiting on the bite to start. I use too deer hunt, and if you did or still do, how many times did you set in that stand for hours and see absolutely nothing? How many times did you see other wildlife but no bucks and so on. Now that we have forward facing sonar think of it as hunting not so much as fishing. Always remember you catch fish by covering water!


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I keep two or three outfits rigged with different baits, and will rotate through them fairly quickly, usually after 6-8 unproductive casts, just to see if their mood changes based on color, size, weight, etc. Sometimes it matters, but most times, it seems like if there’s a biter or two in a group, or the group is active in general, the first few casts will get them regardless. If I go 10-15 minutes and a couple dozen casts without a committed bite or two, I’m out of there. I figure there’s always a school somewhere willing to bite, I just need to stay mobile enough to eventually find it.

I think a lot of my problem is I haven’t caught enough fish to really have confidence in my presentation and/or a color choice. What fish we have caught has been more by luck than skill. I guess next time I go fishing, I need to only take one rod, be it a jig pole or casting setup, and fish one technique. I bounce around from jigging to casting back and forth.


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Originally Posted by Auston22688

I think a lot of my problem is I haven’t caught enough fish to really have confidence in my presentation and/or a color choice. What fish we have caught has been more by luck than skill. I guess next time I go fishing, I need to only take one rod, be it a jig pole or casting setup, and fish one technique. I bounce around from jigging to casting back and forth.

Bud, It doesn't have to be you...........It may not even be Crappie you're looking at. Goo, White Bass, Shell Crackers, etc... will run up to look, and with Livescope LVS32 connected to a 9in Chartplotter how can you really know. LVS 34's on a 12in screen is not a perfect world for identifying species. Usually if fishing structure you will see a fish shoot out of the cover straight to the jig.......thump. You land the fish, it's a Crappie, you think they all are. I'm here to tell you plenty of fish look like a Crappie on Livescope..........exactly why I don't watch the screen so my presentation is as perfect as I can offer. You can't watch the screen and your rod tip, line sink rate, is your line perfectly vertical, etc... at the same time....

I can tell you, too, that a lot of times when you see that "fish" come up out of the cover and "stop & admire your bait" ... the fish is actually "tasting" that bait (ie: the bait is IN the fish's mouth, albeit only for a split second).
I found this out after several occasions of seemingly having the fish come up and look over my bait & then turn away. I decided to try and slowly pull the jig away from the fish, so as to mimic a baitfish fleeing from the rising fish. There were several of those occasions where when I did that my rod tip bent down a little & the jig didn't move on the screen (& neither did the fish). And if I kept on pulling the rod tip up a bit faster ... you guessed it ... "fish on" !!