Only 2 trips with my Livescope and I'm learning a lot

One thing I've heard all my life "crappie only feed up" I had my scope focused on one pole and it would be 10' down and a couple of crappie were cruising at about 2 to 3' and they would turn dive down at about 5' before my jig would get to them and would be all over my jig. I could not believe how far away they could see my jig. Several times I would see the crappie swim past my jig, turn around and come back and hit my jig. The things we are going to learn from this is going to be amazing. The other thing you learn is hundreds of crappie will swim right up to your jig, sniff it and swim away. Then sometimes they will come back 2 or 3 times and then just suck it right up. I can't wait till this weekend.

Nice!


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I was watching one show on tv about fish and their sight. In stained water they can see 4-5 feet. In clear water they can see up to 40 feet away. Has to do something with the amount of cones in their eyes.

Us ice fisherman have known for years about the fish sucking in bait and spitting out without being able to detect the bite. Seen it many times on the camera. We sight fish sometimes when looking down the ice hole and it can be fun watching the bait disappear and try to set the hook before the fish spits it out.

Now the boat fishers have a new tool to see the same thing. Any more fishing has turned into a video game. Not knocking you for the new equipment. Wish I could afford one but I still use a 10 year old model finder and I am comfortable with it.

I keep seeing this comments about the livescope making fishing like a video game and in my experience with the livescope this simply is not true. The store and advertising demos do not accurately reflect the actual view with livescope I achieve nor the ones I watch of real fishing with livescope on youtube.

It does enable you to have a better view of the structure than my older fish finders, it does enable me to watch my jig fall and determine the jig position with respect to the structure and the fish and it does enable me to watch to see fish approach the jig. But in my experience it does not enable me to see the fish take the jig and then spit it out. It does show the two shapes overlapping but that does not mean the fish has taken the jig.

An underwater camera does an even better job of all these things.

The biggest thing I like about the livescope is the ability to accurately see the shape of the structure and see if there are fish on or around the structure. On my older Humminbird I can not see the sphere shape of a porcupine fish attractor. I can see a few of the arms at most. With the livescope I can see the entire attractor and it clearly shows up as a sphere. I can see other forms of structure equally well. This is a big plus for me.

The livescope does a better job of separating the fish from the structure for me which is a real time saver. This allows me to skip structure that does not contain any fish.

The livescope is making a better fisherman out of me as I can see the results of my actions. It has been a teaching tool for me. One thing it has taught me is just how shy crappie are. When I drop a jig too fast into a group of crappie they will all flee the jig. I had thought they would move to take it but that has not been my experience. If I leave the jig sitting still once it is down many will return and look at the jig. Most then swim away from it after checking it out. They do not rush to see which one can take the jig first before the other crappie can get it. I tried using a minnow and found the same thing to be true.

So this has taught me that I need to slowly lower the jig as I approach my chosen fishing depth and stop a foot or two above them at first. Watching the crappie approach my jig has taught me that a smaller jig is better than a larger jig. A 1/64th jig does not fall as fast as a larger jig and does not seem to spook the crappie as much as the larger jigs. I am catching my larger crappie on this size jig. I have also caught large bass and catfish on this size jig, which is not a plus for me but has taught me that the larger fish will hit extremely small baits. Before this I seldom fished anything smaller than a 1/16th but I now mainly fish 1/32 and 1/64th jigs.

The livescope has also taught me that I was fishing my jigs too fast. What I thought was a small movement of the jig with the twitch of my rod tip was actually a large and fast movement of the jig at my fishing level. Which spooked the fish near the jig. So I now don't twitch the rod tip but allow the shanking of my hands to provide the jig movement or I slowly swim the jig instead of jerking on the line or the rod tip for jig movement. (I'm old and my hands do shake)

Another thing it has taught me is that there are may be crappie on structure even through I am not catching any crappie. I dropped two porcupine attractors at the front edge of the deck in my slip two years ago and have yet to catch a crappie from either one. I had thought the attractors had failed to attract crappie. But when I looked at them with the livescope I saw there were large numbers of crappie suspended around both of them. Even with the livescope I still can not get them to bite.

Every time I use the livescope I learn more about how structure and jig selection impact my crappie fishing. So I am becoming a better crappie fisherman from my observations of their reactions to my actions.

I do catch more crappie now but a large part of that is due to my not fishing structure that does not contain crappie and to slowing my actions down.

ezgoing, you are pretty much dead on. So far what I'm using it for is making sure I'm not fishing where there are no fish. One thing that I'm going to test this weekend is going to smaller line and seeing if it makes a difference. I've always used 10 pound test and I'm going to try 6 pound this weekend and see if it makes a difference. I had told my brother this morning that I was also going to try smaller jigs as you mentioned. Maybe some really small hair jigs.

I really like the handtied jigs that Pepop makes at Pepop – Handtied Jigs in the 1/32 and 1/64 sizes. My favorite colors are the Black Truse and the Blue Truse in the 1/16, 1/32 and 1/64 sizes. But I have heard a lot of good comments on his Joe Dirt jig for stained waters so I am thinking strongly about trying it with my next order.

Blue Truse

https://i0.wp.com/handtiedcrappiejig...size=480%2C204


Ketchn worked me over a couple of weeks back using a small pink jig so I ordered a modification of Pepop's Pink Snowball which did excellent work this week. I don't have a picture of the moderation I ordered but it looked similar to the Pink Snowball but did not have the eye on the jig head and the jig head was painted pink, not white.

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Originally Posted by ezgoing

I keep seeing this comments about the livescope making fishing like a video game and in my experience with the livescope this simply is not true. The store and advertising demos do not accurately reflect the actual view with livescope I achieve nor the ones I watch of real fishing with livescope on youtube.

It does enable you to have a better view of the structure than my older fish finders, it does enable me to watch my jig fall and determine the jig position with respect to the structure and the fish and it does enable me to watch to see fish approach the jig. But in my experience it does not enable me to see the fish take the jig and then spit it out. It does show the two shapes overlapping but that does not mean the fish has taken the jig.

An underwater camera does an even better job of all these things.

The biggest thing I like about the livescope is the ability to accurately see the shape of the structure and see if there are fish on or around the structure. On my older Humminbird I can not see the sphere shape of a porcupine fish attractor. I can see a few of the arms at most. With the livescope I can see the entire attractor and it clearly shows up as a sphere. I can see other forms of structure equally well. This is a big plus for me.

The livescope does a better job of separating the fish from the structure for me which is a real time saver. This allows me to skip structure that does not contain any fish.

The livescope is making a better fisherman out of me as I can see the results of my actions. It has been a teaching tool for me. One thing it has taught me is just how shy crappie are. When I drop a jig too fast into a group of crappie they will all flee the jig. I had thought they would move to take it but that has not been my experience. If I leave the jig sitting still once it is down many will return and look at the jig. Most then swim away from it after checking it out. They do not rush to see which one can take the jig first before the other crappie can get it. I tried using a minnow and found the same thing to be true.

So this has taught me that I need to slowly lower the jig as I approach my chosen fishing depth and stop a foot or two above them at first. Watching the crappie approach my jig has taught me that a smaller jig is better than a larger jig. A 1/64th jig does not fall as fast as a larger jig and does not seem to spook the crappie as much as the larger jigs. I am catching my larger crappie on this size jig. I have also caught large bass and catfish on this size jig, which is not a plus for me but has taught me that the larger fish will hit extremely small baits. Before this I seldom fished anything smaller than a 1/16th but I now mainly fish 1/32 and 1/64th jigs.

The livescope has also taught me that I was fishing my jigs too fast. What I thought was a small movement of the jig with the twitch of my rod tip was actually a large and fast movement of the jig at my fishing level. Which spooked the fish near the jig. So I now don't twitch the rod tip but allow the shanking of my hands to provide the jig movement or I slowly swim the jig instead of jerking on the line or the rod tip for jig movement. (I'm old and my hands do shake)

Another thing it has taught me is that there are may be crappie on structure even through I am not catching any crappie. I dropped two porcupine attractors at the front edge of the deck in my slip two years ago and have yet to catch a crappie from either one. I had thought the attractors had failed to attract crappie. But when I looked at them with the livescope I saw there were large numbers of crappie suspended around both of them. Even with the livescope I still can not get them to bite.

Every time I use the livescope I learn more about how structure and jig selection impact my crappie fishing. So I am becoming a better crappie fisherman from my observations of their reactions to my actions.

I do catch more crappie now but a large part of that is due to my not fishing structure that does not contain crappie and to slowing my actions down.

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Amen! I don’t own a livescope but I having been “preaching” for years that people fish too fast with too big of jigs! I have found that the slower I let down and/or swim the jig the more success I experience. I also remind myself to count to 10-15 seconds before moving my jig at all... You would be amazed how many fish don’t thump until after 10 seconds or more!


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These are balanced flies that weigh 1/64oz and a little less. They are about 1 1/8" long. I tie them in different color patterns. They catch fish when a regular 1/16oz jig doesn't. The hooks on these flies are#12 and #14 Diachii 4640. They will handle some bigger fish with ease.Attachment 341479Attachment 341480

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Originally Posted by mb4850

ezgoing, you are pretty much dead on. So far what I'm using it for is making sure I'm not fishing where there are no fish. One thing that I'm going to test this weekend is going to smaller line and seeing if it makes a difference. I've always used 10 pound test and I'm going to try 6 pound this weekend and see if it makes a difference. I had told my brother this morning that I was also going to try smaller jigs as you mentioned. Maybe some really small hair jigs.

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My friend and I spider rig pushing jigs. I use 4 pound leader, he uses 6. I usually have higher numbers than he does, trolling the exact water, exact speed, and usually the exact lures.

Tom

Ezgoing you need to come up north and do some ice fishing. Your hands will shake all the time. Siting on a bucket in sub freezing weather with no gloves will do the jiggle you need to catch fish.��

I've always followed the fly fisherman saying "you need to match the hatch". I always go small. 1/16 is really big for me, usually 1/32 to 1/80 size. The only modification I make to the small jigs is to bend the hook down and off center on the small jigs to help in the hook sets. With 4 lb test the jigs fall nice and slow and give the fish a chance to eye ball the bait.

Ice fishing has showed me how finesse effects your catch rate. Some times they slam your bait and others you might need to work the fish for 5 minutes to get them to bite.

I appreciate the thought but the only ice I want to see is found in my glass of tea. :)

I sometimes bend the hook down somewhat but had not thought of bending it to one side.

bending the hook to an offset is a real old school trick , it will help sometimes for sure and btw EZ I have done it when you wasn't looking on your dock a few times :Rofl