Review: Lowrance LiveSight

So in 2019 Lowrance introduced us to their LiveSight technology. Making underwater information gathering an even easier task for us anglers.

Essentially LiveSight is real time sonar, where you can see fish, bottom and structure in real time depending on where you point the LiveSight transducer. Think of it kind of like a ultrasound.

Now this is not a technical review, as there is plenty of those already floating around. This is purely me talking about my experiences of using the technology.
So LiveSight transducers will only work on the Lowrance HDS Live range of units and also on Carbon units, but the carbon units do need a separate module. Ive had my HDS Live units now for over 12 months and absolutely love them.
I’ve been having a good play around with LiveSight for around 8 months, and its taken a while for me to realise its potential in certain fishing scenarios.
You can run the LiveSight transducer in two modes, Vertical, which has the beam looking straight down, great for vertical fishing, like chasing Golden Perch on trees. Or forward facing, where is throws the beam out in front of the boat.
I have mainly been using it in forward facing, and fine tuning the settings so I can use it for lure casting out the front of the boat.

So the 3 main ways I am using it to help my fishing is:

• Using it to find structure out in front of the boat.
• Using it to monitor my lure depth. Essential for getting my lure to stay close to the zone I’m targeting.
• Using it to see if fish are in the area and how they are responding to my lure or retrieve.

I constantly see fish, especially natives come out of structure and follow my lure back to the boat, these are fish that I probably wouldn’t have seen on my side/downscan as they are hiding deep in the structure. So this then gives me confidence that I am in the right area, and it’s a matter of changing my presentation.

One of the cons of the transducer is how wide the LiveSight beam is, I think it is 40 degrees. I find that if you are trying to target specific items, or structure, then the wider transducer beam can make it tough to pinpoint the exact direction to cast, sometimes it is just a case of fanning your cast methodically to make sure you are running your lure past the structure you can see on the screen.

Originally I had the LiveSight transducer mounted on my trolling motor shaft, but soon found that I wanted to be able to point in any direction I wanted, but without moving the electric motor. So I used a bit of PVC pipe, some fittings and a ram mount to make a bit of DIY mounting system up the front of the boat. I can now aim the LiveSight any way I want without moving the electric. Its heaps better doing it this way.

The livesight technology and transducer are definitely another tool for us anglers to use, and potentially help improve our understanding of fish and their habitats, but also to help with our catch rates. This Live Sonar technology is definitely the way of future, and will transform the way we lure fish.

Edit: So I’ve been getting a heap of questions about my DIY mount for my Livesight unit. So i thought I’d give a little bit more info here. It is definitely not a high tech mount, but it does the job for me.
If your after something much more refined, in both operation and looks check out “Rob Payne Engineering” you can find him on facebook, and he does some really nice looking transducer poles and mounts for all the forward facing transducers on the market, lowrance , Garmin and Humminbird.

My DIY bracket consists of two ram mount plates, one to screw or clamp to the boat, and one to mount to a PVC repair coupling with hose clamps.
I then made the transducer pole and handle out of some High pressure PVC to suit the repair coupling size.
If you need the PVC pipe to slide through the PVC coupling to retrieve or deploy the transducer pole, then you will need to take the rubber seals out of the PVC coupling and cut them thinner so they dont grip the PVC pipe as much. Definitely a bit of trial and error here.

We’d love to hear how you are finding the livesight technology, and how it has improved your angling ability.

More info can be found here at the Lowrance website.