I’m looking to upgrade my ice fishing electronics. I’ve seen Panoptix videos and now James with the 360. Has anybody had any real world experience with both? I’m looking for advice as to what situations one would shine over the other.
In my limited use you can read fish in the weeds and tight to the bottom much easier on the Humminbird 360.
If you are considering humminbird I would wait another year, Humminbird is releasing their version of the panoptics this spring, Humminbird Mega Live.
Tony, that is a great question.
I am a new owner of LS and haven’t fished SXS to 360. The crappie Pics James posted were pretty awesome.
Joe, I was fishing a weedline last night and they came in very clear, I could easily see my jiggin rap tickling the tops. (no fish though 
)
What I do like with LS is the “trails” setting. When a fish is swimming around it leaves a different color trailing the fish so you can see if they are stationary or swimming towards/away from you.
Joe, I was fishing a weedline last night and they came in very clear, I could easily see my jiggin rap tickling the tops. (no fish though )
EPG, I’m referring to seeing fish in the weeds. Side Imaging and 360 will ignore the Weeds. The weeds will show up almost transparent and you can see the fish laying on the bottom in the weeds.
Panoptix does not do this. Sure any locator will read fish on top of the weeds. Is that where your walleye hang out? Cuz mine don’t.
I’ll be fishing a lot of bottom hugging fish. On the videos I’ve seen with the LS, you really can’t distinguish fish from the bottom. Once they rise up, different story
About the 9 minute mark it will talk about bottom hugging fish and the trail setting.
Joe, No that’s not where the eyes hangout, but that was the only place I could access yesterday and I wanted to actually see how the LS works in the weeds.
Ice/Snow conditions on Roosie makes for difficult travel to the walleye spots.
Livescope,
You can fish with it. 360 you need to have a separate unit or switch to a ducer with was splitter on the unit.
I’m assuming the bird mega live will be good and Garmin is coming out with Livescope 2.o sometime here soon. Just a thought.
I would like to see how the 360 performs on a hard bottom vs. a soft bottom. Last weekend episode was clearly showing strong returns of the perch over soft bottom, but I wonder if they would blend in more against a hard bottom.
An area I think the LS has over the 360 is that you can use it for jigging as well, not requiring a 2nd unit/ducer dedicated to jigging
It will be interesting to see if we get some replies from those that have used both.
I’ve wondered the same myself, but to a point it may depend on what head unit you already own. To get the Mega 360 or the new Humminbird Live, you need a G3 or G4 Helix, meaning lots of guys would have to buy a new machine to run the 360 or new Live stuff. If you already own a 7 or 9 inch Garmin from the last couple years, you’ve got the head unit to run Panoptix or Livescope already.
I have Humminbird G2 units in my boat, one being a 12″ SI G2N I got for a good clearance price this spring. I’m not about to go out and spend what it takes to replace that screen with a G4N to run the newer Bird tech. I’d honestly probably be more likely to buy a 9 inch Garmin for $600 right now, sell the SI transducer, and then upgrade to one of the Panoptix transducers.
If I had a G3 or G4 I’d look harder into the Mega 360 or new Bird Live.
Since I bought a Garmin 73cv for ice this year if I wanted to upgrade I’d consider looking for a used regular panoptix transducer for a decent price if they exist. Not looking to make that investment yet though.
If money were no object I would like to have both :). Deadly combo!
You could use the LiveScope in Perspective view.
https://www.facebook.com/theboatdoc2628/videos/1858962274237579
There are no issues seeing bottom hugging fish with bottom fill turned on the livescope. You can see everything and judge the size with gridlines. And it’s all real time info. I had a flasher running side by side and the flasher I couldn’t tell a small perch from a big walleye tight to bottom. Livescope the difference is obvious. And the flasher missed many fish altogether outside its cone.
Thing with livescope is you have to learn all the settings and each spot you move to you need to adjust them to get the best out of the unit. TVG, noise rejection, gain, bottom fill, trails, ghost rejection, color gain, color of screen, etc. Forward mode, down mode, perspective view. Everytime I’m out I learn something new. I’m like a caveman trying to figure out what a wheel does. Even with my limited technology skills it’s just amazing what this unit can do.
Everyone sees colors differently and some eyes work better then others so you have to find what works best for you.
I couldn’t find any good videos on YouTube at all for dialing in a livescope for ice walleyes.
I don’t think you’d be disappointed in either. I chose Livescope and would do so again because it is the better fit to my fishing style.
I see someone already mentioned it but you can use Livescope perspective view.
FWIW – I will always bring the LX6 with me even having LS.
You ain’t hole hoping with LS. It is fun to have them running side by side.
FWIW – I will always bring the LX6 with me even having LS.
You ain’t hole hoping with LS. It is fun to have them running side by side.
Good catch, I forgot to mention that on the ice I only use it to locate fish which reduces the number of holes I need to punch. I use my marcum to catch them.
On open water I’ll use Livescope mostly to find fish, but if the situation allows I’ll also use it to vertical jig.
You could use the LiveScope in Perspective view.
https://www.facebook.com/theboatdoc2628/videos/1858962274237579
Do you need a different transducer to use this mode or does the ice kit come with it?
Same transducer moved to the horizontal position gives you perspective.
You need to get a different style mount for the transducer to do this.
Garmin has a perspective mount and so does summit. It allows you to use all 3 modes. Forward, down, and perspective.
Some of the ice kits have that 8 degree angle mount that is for mounting on a trolling motor. If you have one of those it’s not good for ice fishing. Might as well pony up and get the perspective mount that can do all three
Same transducer moved to the horizontal position gives you perspective.
You need to get a different style mount for the transducer to do this.
Garmin has a perspective mount and so does summit. It allows you to use all 3 modes. Forward, down, and perspective.
Some of the ice kits have that 8 degree angle mount that is for mounting on a trolling motor. If you have one of those it’s not good for ice fishing. Might as well pony up and get the perspective mount that can do all three
Mine did and it drove me nuts until I figured it out. Picked up a zero degrees now the crosshairs are zeroed in.
In perspective view you have no depth reading either need another graph or Y cable and transducer.
we fished with a guy with the 360 chasing basin crappies. we have panoptix. the 360 seems like it will be a holdover until humminbird releases their competitor to livescope. it was ok but it obviously wasn’t live. it will make do until the new product is out is what the 2 guys who used it last year said. They were both enamoured with our panoptix (not even livescope). Obviously the show is sponsored by humminbird so that is what they are going to use, but my guess is the moment the birds equivalent product is out, you won’t see much 360 use.
we use our panoptix as kind of central station and use it to direct us to fish so in that instance when we were with those other guys, they could use it in the same way and it worked good.
My experience with the 360 and LS on ice is that the 360 will stay on the boat and LS will but use on both. Well see how the mega live and garmin new tech will compare as for now 360 and LS, LS is win in my book.
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