I went fishing with Bob Maindelle this week, guide out of Belton. We used the Garmin Live Scope to fish for whites. I was blown away by his technique and the effectiveness of the Live Scope.

Question is this: I already have a Lowrance HDS Live unit on my boat. I was thinking about buying a Lowrance Live Sight transducer and using it with my current graph. Have any of you had any recent experience with Live Sight? Is the Live Scope so much better than the Live Sight that I should invest in a Garmin graph and Live Scope setup vs the Live Sight transducer?

From a functionality standpoint, if I get the Lowrance LiveSight, can I switch back and forth from the downscan/2d screen to the live sight screen easily?

Edit: Was just now looking and see Active Target. What is that? Is Live Sight what I’m wanting or Active Target? I’m asking about the Lowrance version of LiveScope.

Lots of questions I know, big investment for a new view on the graph.

Active Target is Lowrance's version of Livescope.
Garmin's first forward facing sonar was called Panoptix, When that was replaced by Livescope, Lowrance got to copy Panoptix and called it Livesight.
Now Lowrance has copied Livescope and calls it Active Target==pretty much the same going by what has been posted by unit owners.
Conjecture is Garmin has another improved version that will replace Livescope since Livescope has had its typical 2 year production run for electronics stuff.

You will want Active Target on the Lowrance side of live imaging. Since you have the Lowrance HDS LIVE, you will be be very happy with the Active Target. Great Live with Forward, Down and Scout Images.

Sounds like active target is the way to go. Here is my final question on AT. We mainly fish white bass, hybrids and striper. The guide I fished with had his Garmin mounted to a PVC pole at the back of his boat that shot the signal down the side of the boat vs on the trolling motor so he could see his clients baits and see if fish were chasing it. He does all vertical jigging like we do. We are mainly do vertical jigging as well and use live bait in rod holders. I’d like to set mine up the same way so I can see down the side of the boat. Will it work mounting it on the trolling motor viewing rearward?

Final question Rob since I have you, I have a Yamaha VF250XA motor I’d like to hook up to my graph while I am pulling wires through my boat. I haven’t been able to find the correct cable. What is the correct cable setup I need as my motor is a command link motor?

Thanks all for the help.

Engines with Command Link the gateway comes from the dealer which then connects to the nema backbone. Below is the Command Link info

.Command Link - a gateway needs to be used to interface
(MAR-GTWAY-ML-09) this provides isolation from the engine
systems and the NMEA2000 network
•

I finally took time to take the engine cowling off and found the wires I needed. Now I have a couple more questions.




Do I need the gateway vs using a Yamaha Engine Interface Cable?





I don’t have a Command Link hub in my boat, I have manual gauges and no command link gauges.




I will buy what I need but am not sure what all I need at this point. Do I need to buy the command link junction box as well if I buy the command link gateway? Or can I just buy the Interface cable and bypass the junction box?