Mega 360 or Livescope

Going to add some advanced electronics to the front of the boat but want some thoughts.

I have HB electronics now and I don’t plan to eliminate my HB from the front of the boat. If for no other reason, I want my mapping and my networked waypoints, etc.

So my choice is really replacing my current HB with the Mega imaging unit necessary for the new 360 or adding the Garmin system.

Anyone have experience with both 360 and Livescope? Anyone out there with advance screening of the Mega 360?

I've had both and would take 360 for largemouth any day. I plan to upgrade to mega360 sometime soon but have not seen it in person yet. Humminbird just emailed out a new video on it yesterday, you can probably find it on youtube.

Livescope shines for crappie I think but I didn't find it nearly as useful for largemouth. You do see a lot of stuff swimming around though which is pretty cool and insightful.

LiveScope is impressive for stripers too

I have both and use both at the same time.

If I HAD to lose one I would lose the live scope.

The 360 shows me structure to fish at 30-40 feet.

The live is mostly useful at 20-25 max to see if fish are in their or if they follow and plenty of times I see them eat my bait. BUT it isnt good for finding structure all around you to fish like 360, especially in say 7 feet of water. In 7 feet with live you are 7-10 from a small rock pile before you see it with live, with my 360 I see that way out and have already fished it before I get to it.


I had to fish a lake I know like the back of my hand w out my 360 for 3 days this year and even knowing all the rock piles it was hard to find them and position with the live scope only..

Live is fun and I have noticed if there are no blue gill or crappie around swimming I usually dont catch any bass unless I am casting right on a object. Ive only had live since April, but thats what Ive seen.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=340547013308733

I prefer the 360 because of it's simplicity and you don't have to worry about aiming it. I have found structure in areas that I fish regularly that I never knew existed before running the 360. When I see structure I know exactly where it is in relation to the boat no matter what direction the wind might turn the boat, without having to pan a transducer to locate it. Livescope looks cool and I am sure that there are plenty of uses depending on how you fish but I'll stick with the 360 for the way that I like to fish. I'd like to get the Mega but then I'd have to change my FFers and am not ready to do that yet.

Jeff - thanks for your insight. I can see how having both would be beneficial. Sounds like the Garmin would really shine when fishing brushpiles and when fishing vertically. As I read all of the replies and watched the new promotional video, I think I might get more benefit from the 360.

Thanks again for taking time to share your thoughts.

Thanks everyone. I think I’ll go with the MEGA 360. Hope it is available soon.

Wayne - thanks for the video link.

No sweat

I've seriously been thinking about buying the live scope during the black Friday sales if I can find any good deals, but now I'm re-considering due to some of the information Jeff provided. Can you confirm a few things for me:

1. With livescope, are you saying that depth of the water determines how far it will scan? So, if I'm in 20 feet of water I can only see 20 feet forward? If that's the case, I wouldn't be too happy with it as it would really limit the ability to search for brush/rock piles.
2. With the 360, all of the videos I see show a grainy picture with tiny white dots that are somehow interpreted to be fish. After you have used it for awhile, can you actually use it to locate fish? I'm thinking about fishing a main lake point in 25 feet of water, seeing the fish, and casting to those fish. I see Ott can do it on the promo video, but will it be that easy for the weekend fisherman?
3. Do you think with the new mega 360, it will be possible to sit on top of a brush pile and see the fish below you? I'm wanting to improve my offshore bass fishing, but would also like to have something that allows me to fish deep brush piles for crappie during the winter months.

Cost also plays a role in the decision. Livescope is probably going to run me around $2,500 because I also need to get the graph and it seems like the 9 inch is the best combination of price/functionality. I assume a 9 inch unit with the mega 360 is going to cost about the same. Would you agree?

Just trying to gather as much information as I can before I drop a lot of money on something I won't be happy with.

In 20' of water you can look 200' out. If you set it at 200' your images will be very small but you will be able to see them. I usually keep mine at around 70' on a 10" screen.

Bass Pro Shop is having the Ultra 9" for $600 in their latest flyer. You can get a GPSmap 1022 (10" screen) for $1200.

SE Kansas grass grower

I have the livescope and HDS12 live, will have the all in one transducer on my ghost trolling motor, so I will have down scan and side scan on the trolling motor as well as livescope, I think that is a pretty good set up, now if I only knew how to use them, lol.

2. What do you call the images that Livescope produces?

3. You can do that with the current 360. I've been doing just that for several years. This is just crappie, bass, and shad not associated with any cover:



This is crappie and bass on a brush pile:



When fish are spawning, you can see their beds and the fish on them.



As soon as the MEGA 360 is publicly available there should be plenty of examples of its performance.

I run 4 birds and just replaced my GN2 with a GN3 so I can purchase the mega 360 when its available and was sold on it. My father, who is still known to have issues turning on his tv/direct tv at the same time, just purchased livescope. Over the past 2 months he's made several trips to a local lake with minimal success before purchasing LS. This weekend was his first real time to use the unit and did so on the same lake and he caught a lot more fish all of which he attributes to the LS. Admittedly he said it can be a time waster, but helped him a great deal. He caught some of his fish jigging/ripping a rattletrap in front of fish he was watching. Others were caught with more traditional methods using the LS. Fishing overall is getting better due to the cooler weather so maybe that's part of his success as well, but he was seeing fishing on the graph, targeting them and specifically catching them. My father who is pushing 70 said it was just like playing a video game, which he has never played in his life facepalm.gif...

So im a bird man and was hoping to get a negative review on his new unit, unfortunately he had none after his first use so now i'm torn too.

1. I HAVE NEVER seen my lure at 40 feet ever. I cant even see a small umbrella type spinner bait out that far. If I have my unit set at 30 feet it usually pops up about 25 feet if its something big like a umbrella type spinner bait etc. If fishing a plastic like a swim bait say a few feet off the bottom that doesnt show up until 20 sometimes but usually 15. When I say looking for rock piles with my live since my 360 was off my boat at the time I am talking about true rock piles, in Iowa they put dump truck loads of rock in piles in our lakes, some are 3 feet high some are scattered etc. With 360 in 7 feet of water I can count individual larger rocks at 30 feet out and cast to them same clearly with the rock piles etc. With live only the picture is grainy out at 30 feet, I kept finding myself darn near on top of the piles before I could be sure I found them if that makes sense? The live IS great for finding fish especially if they move a little which they usually are turning moving a little etc even if under a branch etc. When you bring a lure by them you can see them nose down on it or chase up at it and eat it or turn away etc. fyi I have used my live in clear and dingy water, it doesnt really make that much difference.

2 360. I use 360 for finding structure to FISH not physically fish for the most part, THAT said in open water absolutely you can see fish they are white marks like you said, once youve seen them a few times AND their shadow you will learn what is what. The thing most people do wrong with 360 is the range they set the circle to. NOTICE Waynes pics from top to bottom, 40@ 17 feet deep. 60@19 feet deep. 40@6 feet deep. I have gotten on multiple boats with guys who felt their 360 was garbage. They ALL had it set to 100 feet... Lets be real, even the best side scan is not that great out at 100 feet, why would 360 be? Also side and 360 cant see thru things so if there is grass you wont see anything on the other side of it or deep in it so if your fishing a grass line set your circle to 20-30 maybe 40 so you can follow the grass line and fish it. The best way to learn to interpret 360 is to side scan rock piles, trees, a grass line etc. Then go look at that stuff with 360. START with your distance at 30 feet, then move away as you already know what your looking at and youll see how it blurs up etc.

3. I havent had a mega 360, so I have no real world information about it. I DONT ever believe anything they put out for pics etc. But to answer your question about seeing below you, the dark area in waynes pictures is BELOW the ducer, and you can see those schools of fish. IF your over brush or trees it will look like a tree from the top. So picture this, lets say you stand above a x mas tree CAN you count all the ornaments? (Im going to say you can count some out on the edges, or maybe some of the LARGER ones that stick out from branches and are not blocked by a branch) In my opinion looking at waynes second pic where he says that is bass and crappie in a brush pile the only way I would think that would be if I already was over that brush pile and it had no fish so it looked different, to me that pic looks like a brush pile, with the dots out away from it being fish. Not knowing or being familiar with what kind of a brush pile hes on I cant confirm or deny that there are fish in it from his picture. Now since I have live, I can look in that brush pile from a side scan perspective and see if those are fish or not very well since he is 15-17 feet from it, live will show me if fish are moving about really well. (live is like taking a flashlight and looking under a dock, in brush etc)


Live on a 9" is absolutely too small. I am running a 12" one of my best friends went out with me for 3 days in a row messing with my live with me when I first got it and then he got a 9" because it was in stock at b pro in town. HE said it was too small to use period he tried and gave up and just fished... he does have 360 also fyi. He is using a 10" BUT he keeps it zoomed in for the most part. In order to have zoom you must have a touch screen he says without the zoom the 10 would be too small standing on the deck. I am not using a touch and he has said he would much much rather not have touch (screen gets smudged up) but since hes using a 10" its a must have to use the zoom and get anything out of the live.

I have NEVER seen anyone any where but me reference the zoom, my friend found out about it by accident because they had no non touch in stock. I dont have a touch so we had no idea that it was existed because neither of us read about it anyplace. If they make a update so my non touch screen has a cursor like a helix so I can use live zoom, HE will switch to a 10 inch non touch in a second he says. For whatever reason he doesnt really want a 12 his boat has 3 helix 10s on it so he doesnt want one larger.

The Zoom I speak of is the same as on a helix where you move the cursor and then can zoom in, making a box that is a blown up or zoomed in area... He sets that box at the bottom of the screen and leaves it, we both adjust the depth manually to keep live set just a foot below the depth we are in. If you set it deeper youll lose picture quality. If you leave it on auto depth adjust it is constantly zooming in and out and changing. WE are both hoping for a garmin update to add a shortcut to adj the depth, like the units have for distance and gain.. I dont adj gain so I would gladly lose the gain shortcut in exchange for a depth short cut.


If you can my suggestion would be to try and get on a boat with someone like me who knows how to use live and 360, that way they can show you what they both can do and explain ^^^ because its hard to type it all and get it across. I have read and re read this post trying to not make errors or say something wrong or out of context on my boat I could show you all the above and more in 10 minutes.

If I missed anything ask, Ill give you my opinion. I am not biased about either system nobody send me helix or live or 360 like Wayne gets. I buy my stuff. Will I upgrade to a mega 360 at this time I dont think so, but you never know, I am not limited by funds, but part of that reason is that I dont waste a whole lot of them.

Jeff

So you replaced your console g2 with a g3 and are using the g3 ducer on the back of the boat?

Is the g3 more clear or better at sonar, mega side and mega down like they claim?

In reading about it I kind of concluded that it was only going to reach out further in distance something more valuable for open water guys chasing schools etc. BUT It kinda stands to reason to reach further its more powerful so it should have a better picture at lesser distances so that is what I am asking you.

Both have advantages. Simply. 360 imaging is side-scan around the boat.. Livescope is down-imaging around the boat.

One example. Both can be used to fish hydrilla edges.

360 will display side-scan view of grass-line, you can view the distance better and distance to make casts.

Livescope will display down-scan view, you can see grass distance and depth of the grass.

Again, both are good.

Wow. There is some great information in this thread. Thanks to all, and especially Jeff, for taking the time to inform the rest of us. I understand better the pros/cons of each system. Sounds like 360 is the clear winner for bass fishing and livescope is the better choice for vertical brush pile/dock/piling/deep cover fishing. I think I would be happy with either and would like to have both.

I have a 500 dollar Cabela's gift card to spend. $599 for the 93sv plus that ring fry pointed out is probably going to steer me in the Garmin direction. I agree that the 9 inch won't be optimal, but the boat I will be using doesn't have any electronics right now and I have to start somewhere.

I fish with my brother a lot out of his boat. I also have a 16 foot flat bottom boat in my pond that I've never had any electronics on.

I'm planning to build a waterproof box that I can move between all three boats. I'll mount the unit to the top of the box and probably raise it pretty high to see better. I can install a lightweight lithium battery inside the box and have a self contained system that is easily transferred between boats. For the transducer, I'll build something that connects to a ram mount so it can be attached, raised, and lowered quickly.

This all makes sense in my head, now I just need to get it ordered and see how my idea pans out.

I have two gn2 12's on the console and a 9 and 10 at the bow. I replaced the bow 10 with the gn3 and yes it does seem to be clearer/better, but have only used it once.