First On-The-Water Test Of All 3 Live Sonars | Humminbird Mega Live, Active Target, Garmin Livescope

what's up y'all welcome back to fish moments today we have a very interesting test for you as many of you know i've been running garmin live scope on my trolling motor for the past year but recently i got my hands on the new humminbird mega live imaging as well as the lowrance active target now i have all three forward-facing sonars but i don't know which one is best so i went to my friends at the bass tank and we put together something pretty special for you and here's what we put together we call this the forward-facing trident poseidon would be proud of us with this one we basically strapped a pole on the side of my boat and at the bottom here we connected all three of the different forward-facing sonars so you come down here i'll show you what we did basically we hooked up garmin livescope the lowrance active target and the humminbird mega live so that we can basically point them at the exact same piece of cover or the exact same fish in real time so my goal today is to run all three of these sonars through a series of tests to figure out which one is the best let's get after it but before we start testing these forward-facing sonars i need to find some fish to look at so i'm going to use my trusty down scan inside scan to hopefully find some fish that we can point these transducers at after graphing for 15 or 20 minutes i found two or three nice offshore brush piles in 12 to 15 feet of water one call out i want to make is that i chose a lake today that is very average in terms of water clarity and bottom composition the water visibility on this lake is two to three feet and the bottom has a mix of rock and mud in a lot of the marketing images you'll see from all fish finder brands you'll see them going to extremely clear lakes with very hard bottoms while these give really clear and nice images for marketing material they don't represent what actual images might look like on a normal lake that you're gonna fish with maybe less water visibility and softer bottom after finding some cover i dropped the forward facing sonars in the water i initially tried to test them with all three sonars running at the exact same time this was the whole goal with the forward-facing trident unfortunately the three forward-facing sonar was run on different frequencies and they started to interfere with the images across all three units this gave me really bad bands of interference running across the screen and it didn't give me an accurate test of what the fish finders actually looked like in their actual performance therefore i decided to turn only one fish finder on at a time to isolate that frequency to get the best possible image i did spot lock in one spot to ensure that i could get the exact same angle on these brush piles in every test so even though we're not getting a real-time side-by-side comparison we're still getting a comparison of the exact same types of cover on the exact same days with each forward-facing sonar now that i've explained my testing procedure i want to explain the criteria i'm using to test each forward facing sonar the four criteria i'm focusing on are image clarity target separation forward range and ability to track your bait on the screen i'll explain each of these in more detail as i conduct the tests so without further ado let's jump into our first test of image clarity let's start with garmin livescope on the screen you'll see an underwater brush pile which is the same brush pile i showed you earlier on my side imaging on livescope you can clearly see a limb extending off the bottom at a 45 degree angle you can see the entire tree and if you look closely underneath this tree branch you can also see two bright dots these are actually fish that are setting up underneath this tree next let's take a look at this exact same brush pile on the rant's active target a quick call out as i set the forward range to 80 feet and the depth range to 30 feet on all three fish finders to keep the test consistent taking a look at lauren's active target you can again see this brush pile with the limb that sticks up at a 45 degree angle you can also see a dot below that limb which is a fish now there are a few differences that jump out right away when you compare a lowrance active target to a garmin livescope image first on the lawrence active target you can see that the background is very clear it's basically just a black image behind the brush pile if you compare this to the garmin live scope you can see that there's a lot more noise or graininess to the background this is not necessarily a bad thing there's actually a good reason why garmin leaves it a little bit grainy they'll explain in my next test but you can definitely see that the image looks a little bit more crisp on the lowrance active target however what you also will notice is that the garmin live scope provides a lot clearer outline or picture of that brush pile you can see the entire limb of that tree without having it being broken up with any noise when you compare that to the lawrence active target you'll see that that tree limb isn't completely filled in in that solid color there's a lot of breaks in there and even though the background of the screen is a little bit clear the actual brush pile itself isn't as solid or crisp as it is on the garmin live scope therefore there are pros and cons to both these units if you want to have a super clear screen in the back you're going to sacrifice maybe having a perfectly clear or defined cover or structure object on the screen finally let's take a look at this exact same brush pile with hummingbird mega live imaging if you take a look at this image again you can see that brush pile along with that limb that sticks up at a 45 degree angle you can also see a dot just below that limb just like you could in the other two forward facing sonars which is a fish just like the lowrance active target you can see that the background of a hummingbird mega live image is very clear and crisp it's basically just completely black unlike the garmin livescope which is more grainy you'll also notice that that brush pile is broken up a little bit on the screen it's not a perfect outline or a perfect shape you do have some breaks in that brush similar to lauren's active target however as i was testing the humminbird mega live i found that the image was slightly less consistent than the lowrance active target or the garmin live scope sometimes the tree limbs would pop in out of the screen just for a split second and it wouldn't be a perfectly smooth consistent image i personally didn't mind that much when i was out in the lake and i don't think it's going to affect the usability or the fishability of humbered mega live now that we've had a chance to compare all three forward-facing sonars in terms of image clarity i want to give my final scores on a scale of 1 to 10. first garmin live scope i'm going to rate it an 8 out of 10 for image clarity i really like how consistent the image is and how you can see the entire outline of the brush pile you can also clearly see that fish and it shines bright on the bottom compared to that brush pile however there is a lot of grainness in the background which may not be to everyone's liking but it doesn't detract from the image itself therefore i feel like an 8 out of 10 is a good score next we have laurent's active target i'm a big fan of how clear the screen is in the background and eliminates a lot of extra noise so you can focus specifically on the brush pile and the fish on the screen the brush pile does have a few breaks in it but it's not the end of the world and you can definitely tell where the limb ends and where it starts you can also clearly see the fish underneath that limb and because that screen is so clear in the background and doesn't have any of the graininess of the garmin livescope i'm going to give it the exact same score an 8 out of 10. ideally for a 10 out of 10 image i'd like to see a clear screen in the back with a solid outline to that brush pile however you don't get that with either of these fish finders you have to choose one or the other depending on which one you like the best finally we have the humminbird mega live imaging the clarity of the screen is similar to the lowrance active target however the consistency of the image is not quite as good as active target so i can't give it the same score therefore i'm going to drop it down one point to a seven out of ten i still think it has a really solid image and it's definitely usable on the water you can see where the brush pile starts where it ends and where that fish is underneath the brush pile it's not quite as consistent as the other two but it definitely get the job done the next test i ran was target separation what i mean by this is how easy it is to differentiate fish from cover on the screen let's start by taking a look at the garmin live scope to explain what i'm talking about here's another brush pile that i found that has a lot more limbs to it and i think it might be an old christmas tree this is why you don't see a defined limb sticking off the tree and it's kind of more like a clump rather than that defined branch look that we saw in the first image however if you look closely in this image you can see some brighter dots shining through these are fish and this is what i'm talking about when i say target separation target separation for me is how easy it is to differentiate fish from brush or rocks or other types of cover in this example you can clearly see those dots shining in that brush pile i actually had to change the settings on garmin livescope to achieve this look i took the color gain down about 15 percent what this does is fade out the brush pile slightly and make the returns a little bit weaker but it keeps the stronger returns of those fish so that you can differentiate the brightness of the fish from the dull transparency of those softer weaker returns from the brush pile next let's look at this exact same brush pile on lowrance active target as you can see this brush pile is a lot more defined and you can actually see the limbs of the tree on active target which you couldn't see on the garmin live scope the reason for this is because you can't actually adjust the color gain on the lowrance active target unit this means i can't fade out or reduce the returns from that brush pile to make the dots or the fish in that brush pop out i could get a very similar image like this on the garmin live scope if i turn that color gain back up however i purposely turned it down so that again the limbs those trees are more translucent and those dots of the fish pop out however on lowrance active target this is not a setting option that you can use and therefore it's very hard to tone down the sensitivity or the brightness of that tree to make the dots or the fish pop out of that brush this means that you don't have very good target separation with lowrance active target due to the inability to adjust that color gain setting finally let's take a look at this exact same brush pile on humminbird mega live unlike the lawrence active target there is a setting that allows you to adjust color gain on a humminbird unit it's called contrast this allows you to make the limbs of the tree more transparent and pop out those dots just like you could on a garmin livescope unit if you take a look at this tree you can see that the limbs are almost completely transparent they have that light blue hue to them and then you can see those brighter yellow dots popping off the screen those are your fish that are setting up in those limbs and those fish were there on the lawrence active target but they were blending into the limbs of the tree because you couldn't adjust that contrast or color gain setting now i want to make one quick call out to avoid confusions because i'm sure some of you guys have noticed this if you take a look at the lowrance active target image here you can see the settings on the right side and you'll notice a contrast setting this is what lowrance calls their sensitivity and this is the only way you can adjust what the image looks like on the screen other than noise rejection everything else which is also on the other units however if you are on a humber unit you can actually set a sensitivity setting and a contrast setting they're two separate things there is not a sensitivity and a contrast setting on lowrance there's just contrast similarly on garmin there is the color gain setting and the gain settings so you have two separate ways to adjust the image so basically on the humminbird and the garmin there's two ways to adjust your sensitivity and contrast or on lowrance there's only one way which is just that contrast setting hopefully that makes sense basically there's just more ways to fine tune the image on hummingbird and garmin now that that's hopefully cleared up let me give my final scores for target separation for all three units for garmin live scope i gave it a 9 in target separation this is because you can still clearly see that brush pile along with those brighter dots in the brush this means you can still see the cover that's down there along with the fish for lowrance active target i gave it a target separation score of five without that secondary contrast or sensitivity setting to adjust the image it's a lot harder to pick out those objects from brush it is possible but it's really hard to do and it takes a trained eye so it's not impossible so that's why i gave it a five but it's definitely not as good as the garmin live scope or hummingbird mega live finally for humber mega live i gave it a score of 8 out of 10 for target separation unlike garmin livescope where you can still pretty clearly see the brush pile along with the fish you really have to crank down that contrast to see those fish pop out from the brush pile to the point where the brush pile almost completely disappears again this doesn't affect the fish ability and you can still see that that brush pile is there along with those brighter dots in the fish but it is a little bit trickier to see the cover therefore i'm going to drop it down one point from the live scope for an 8 out of 10. really quick for those who want more information about how to set the settings on their fish finder to find more bass head to my website fishthemoment.com then go to the sonar guides page here you'll find my sonar settings guides where i provide detailed walkthroughs of how to set up the different settings on your down imaging side imaging and 2d sonars as well as all the other settings on a variety of fish finders across the market i have three different fish finders up right now and i'll be adding more every single month so that you guys can know exactly which settings i use to get the best picture on my fish finder to find more baths check them out at fishthemoment.com the next criteria i tested was forward range this is how far in front of the boat you can see objects with each forward-facing sonar for this test i set the forward range on each fish finder to 120 feet this is about as far as an average angle will cast and there is no real point going beyond 120 feet with any of these sonars let's start with the garmin live scope for my first test i wanted to look at a brush pile at 80 feet when the range was set to 120 feet to see how clear the image was in this case you can see this brush pile pretty clearly the limbs show up really well you can definitely tell that you're looking at a brush pile one call out is that i did have to crank up that color gain to get that brush pile to really pop off the screen therefore it's going to be a little bit more difficult in this exact scenario to identify fish from the brush however as the objects get further away from the boat you need to increase that color gain to make them pop off the screen next i want to see what a brush pile 120 feet away would look like basically at the very end of that forward range again you can see that brush pile which is this brighter spot that's sticking up off the bottom it's not quite as clear as the first brush pile we looked at but you can definitely still identify it as a piece of cover and as long as you can identify as a piece of cover you can definitely cast over to it and hit it with your bait i then ran the exact same test with lowrance active target here's that brush pile at 80 feet you can still clearly see the limbs of the trees and can identify it as a brush pile 80 feet away from the boat one advantage to lowrance active target over livescope is that i didn't actually have to adjust my settings at all to see this brush pile away from the boat one thing in general i've noticed about lowrance active target is that the settings are pretty much good to go out of the box you don't need to make any adjustments at all to get a good image however with garmin live scope i had to make a lot of adjustments depending on how far the objects were away from the boat and what i wanted to see on the screen this has pros and cons because obviously the more you can adjust the image the better you can fine tune it to what you want to do but it can make it a little bit more tricky for a beginning user to get a good image out of the box i then looked at some brush piles 120 feet away from the boat with lowrance active target again you can see those brush piles sticking up off the screen on the far right edge they don't look very clear but you're not going to get a really clear image on any of these forward-facing sonars 120 feet away you're really just going to get a general outline of the object regardless of which one you're using so as long as you can still identify that there's some cover out there you're going to be good to go you can still see the height of the object and how far away it is from the boat this will allow you to cast to it and hopefully work your bait effectively through that cover finally we have the humminbird mega live here's that brush pile 80 feet away from the boat on mega live imaging one thing i immediately noticed once i set that range to 120 feet on mega live is that the image gets very grainy and doesn't look that great past about 80 feet you can still see it that brush pile is there but it doesn't look nearly as good as it does on the other two forward-facing sonars it seems like there's kind of a limit to the good clarity on this mega live at about maybe 70 to 80 feet past that the image quality really starts to take a nosedive which is unfortunate though again you can still see that there's brush there if we then take a look at those brush piles they were 120 feet away from the boat you can see the brush piles and identify that there's something out there but it's almost like they're floating out in the middle of nowhere there's no solid bottom underneath them and unless you know exactly what you're looking at it might be hard to identify these as brush on the mega live compare that to the garmin live scope and the active target where you can see that bottom and see those objects a little bit clearer mega live falls just a little bit short time for me to get my scores on forward range for the garmin live scope i'm going to give it a 7 out of 10. while you can identify objects at 120 feet you don't get very much definition or clarity i would like to see the image look like it does at 40 feet out all the way at 120 feet and this is what it would need to do to get a 10 out of 10 in my book now i'm sure there are technical limitations and it may not be even possible to get that clear of an image right now at that distance with existing technology moreover compared to the other two forward-facing sonars the forward range on the garmin livescope is just as good if not better however i'm going to be a little bit of a harsh critic here and go for the 7 out of 10 with the hope that they're going to improve it in the future and i can give it a better score on future tests moving on to lauren's active target i'm going to give it a 7 out of 10 in forward range as well the image clarity is about the same and you can still see objects about 120 feet no problem you don't have the perfect crystal clear image that i would expect from these fish finders maybe not now but in the future so i'm going to leave some room for improvement and go for 7 out of 10 again hoping that they improve it in the future for a better score finally we have humminbird mega live unlike the first two the forward range is definitely limited to maybe 80 or 90 feet on the humminbird unit this is a little bit unfortunate and it's going to knock my score down to a 5 out of 10. you can still see objects out to 120 feet but you have to really know what you're looking at in the screen to identify them as a brush pile or something else rather than just a floating random entity at the end of the screen i think this could be improved with future updates one call i do want to make is i adjusted the sonar angle from 60 degrees down to 50 down to 40 degrees to see if that would improve the distance i can get it didn't make any difference really changing that sonar angle so from my testing it seems like 80 to 90 feet is kind of the good sweet spot for the maximum range on that humminbird mega live therefore it gets a 5 out of 10 hoping this improves in the future but for now it's just a little bit short of the other two units the final test is one that i'm sure a lot of you guys have been waiting for the ability to follow or track your bait using forward-facing sonar let's start with garmin livescope livescope is known for the ability to track your bait back to the boat and it didn't disappoint in this test for the test i was using a mega bass vision 110 plus two jerk bait that would cast it out about 90 feet from the boat and then try to track it as soon as possible with the garmin livescope i started picking up the bait consistently about 70 feet away from the boat i was then able to easily track it all the way back to the boat until it got to the trolling motor this is what i would expect from livescope i use this all the time on the water and it's great to be able to track your bait a full 60 to 70 feet away from the boat even when you're throwing a small three or four inch jerkbait next we have lauren's active target i perform the same test by casting that jerkbait 90 feet away from the boat and tried to pick it up as soon as possible i did start noticing the jerkbait at about 70 feet away from the boat but it was cutting in and out just a little bit it didn't become super clear and apparent on the screen until about 50 feet away from the boat after that i was able to easily track it all the way through one thing about the lowrance active target is that the beam angle is a little bit more narrow than the garmin live scope this means it's going to be slightly more difficult to pick up your bait at a very far distance away from the boat the wider the angled a little bit easier it is to keep that bait on the screen therefore you're going to be able to track your bait a little bit further away from the boat with garmin live scope not that much different but maybe 10 extra feet but that 10 feet can definitely make a difference at times when those fish are setting up 60 to 70 feet away from the boat finally we have humminbird megalive after running the test again i noticed that i was starting to pick up my jerkbait at about 60 feet away from the boat but it was definitely cutting in and out quite a bit it wasn't until my bait got 40 to 45 feet away from the boat that i could get a nice clear picture of that jerk bait this means that i can only track that bait consistently out to about 45 feet with mega live compared to 55 to 60 feet with active target and 65 to 70 feet with garmin live scope one other call out with the humber mega live is that the bait does disappear off the screen then pop back in every once in a while making it a little bit inconsistent in terms of your ability to track that lure through the entire cast as long as you don't lose that lure in that split second that it blips on and off the screen you should be fine but it does make it slightly more difficult to track the bait at distance than the other two fish finders now it's time for my scores for the garmin live scope i gave its ability to track the bait a 9 out of 10. you can see that bait the furthest away from the boat and it clearly stays on screen the entire way back as long as you're about 70 feet away from the boat for the lorentz active target i gave it an 8 out of 10. you can still see that bait very clearly though you need to be about 60 feet away from the boat as opposed to 70. that 10 extra feet knocks it down one point in my estimations finally for the humber mega live i gave it a 6 out of 10 for your ability to track your bait you can only see that bait about 45 feet away from the boat and even when it's that close to the boat it sometimes flickers in and out causing you to lose the bait if you get blown by a gust of wind or move your trolling motor a little bit to the right or to the left therefore it can't get as high as the score as the other two and hopefully this is something again that can get fixed in future software updates one big call out with humminbird again is it just got released to consumers like a week ago so they are working on software updates as we speak so this may get better in the future but as it stands right now it's a six out of ten those were the four tests i put each forward facing sonar through i have the final scores before we give the winner i want to go through some of the pros and cons for each unit as i reveal their score in third place we have humminbird mega live imaging with a final score of 26 out of 40. in terms of the pros mega live has a solid image clarity and target separation you can adjust sensitivity and contrast to pick out fish from objects like brush piles and rock piles and you can definitely identify everything you need to see on the water as far as the cons the forward range on the humminbird mega live isn't up to par with the other two units this hurts its ability to see objects far away from the boat and it also is hard to detract your bait at a distance making it a little bit trickier to follow your bait to get in front of those fish finally the image does seem to cut out a little bit every once in a while when i'm out in the water i feel like this is a result of this unit being pretty much brand new to the market it's only been available for a week or two to consumers i have a feeling they're going to improve the image quality and stability of the image with future software updates over the next three to six months for some additional context the other two forward-facing sonars we're comparing megalive to have been on the market for at least nine months and this gives them a head start on updating the software and getting a better image hummingbird mega live is also a lot easier to install there's no black box that comes with the mega log transducer you basically just plug it straight into the fish finder and you're good to go this makes installation easier for someone who wants to do it themselves and there's a lot less clutter going on your rob boxes which is definitely helpful for anglers who have smaller boats like myself and may compensate for the slightly lower performance scores that you see compared to the other units in second place we have lowrance active target with a final score of 28 out of 40. in terms of the pros active target has comparable image clarity forward range and an ability to follow your bait compared to the garmin live scope in addition it's the easiest unit for beginners to put on their boat and start using immediately the default settings work great out of the box and you really don't need to adjust any settings when you get your fish finder to get a clear image both close up to the boat and far away there's even a restore defaults option in the main menu in case you mess with the settings and start to mess it up they're so confident that the initial settings will work for most anglers that they just say restore defaults if you want to get the best image this makes it ideal for anglers who struggle with new technology and don't want to be messing around with all the different settings to try to perfect their image if you go fishing one time a month and just want a unit that works right out of the box lowrance active target is the one for you however while the simplicity has advantages it also can cause some problems in terms of target separation without the ability to adjust the color gain on this unit you're not going to be able to weaken the returns of brush and cover to pick out individual fish this is definitely more of an advanced technique but it's something that i use on the water all the time and it really does help me pick out isolated fish that other anglers are missing i would even argue that if lowrance would put in a color game setting even if they hide it deep in the menus this would improve the unit and give it better target separation which would then raise the score from a 28 up into the 30s and put it almost completely in line with garmin live scope finally in first place we have garmin live scope with a final score of 33 out of 40. in terms of the pros it does pretty much everything well it tied the highest score or had the highest score by itself in every single category there really isn't much to say other than it's just a really good unit and a great tool to fish offshore as well as up in shallow water while i didn't give it a perfect score because i do feel like there are room for improvements in some categories it definitely was a top performer in this test the one call i will make is that some anglers may prefer the clear screen on the mega live or the lowrance active target and i know that some anglers really don't like the graininess or the noise in the background of a garmin livescope image however this doesn't detract from the performance and usability of the unit as long as you're not that concerned about the specific aesthetics of the screen you're going to get more functionality out of live scope than the other three units again as i mentioned if lawrence active target had the ability to adjust that color gain setting these units would basically be tied neck and neck so lawrence if you're listening maybe that's a setting you can bury somewhere back in the advanced menus to give those who really want to dial in their unit the extra option this would allow anglers then who want that clear screen that black screen to choose active target over garmin live scope additionally you may want to wait if you have humber units four to six months to see if that image clarity gets a little bit better on the humminbird unit and they fix that forward range to give you a little bit more distance out in front of the boat i'll be doing follow-up videos to test humbered mega live as they put out new updates to keep you guys on track in terms of which units are performing the best we may even redo this test in a year just to see how everything's going so hopefully you enjoyed this video it took a lot of work putting this together getting all three of these fish finders mounted on the boat getting the forward-facing trident installed it took a lot of man-hours and i have to give a huge shout out to my friends over at the bass tank in tulsa oklahoma they are the industry leaders in fish finder installation if they could get all three forward-facing sonars rigged up on my 18-foot triton they can pretty much install anything they do a really solid job putting dedicated power lines each unit so there wasn't any interference and they made sure this test was completely fair and as consistent as possible if you guys have any sonar installation needs or want to pick up any of these forward-facing sonars head over to thebasstank.com i trust them more than anyone else in the industry to install my electronics and they're definitely going to do it the right way so you can get the best possible image on your screen again that's thebasstank.com and that's it for this video guys i appreciate everyone sticking around this far and if you're still here i would really appreciate you guys leaving a comment down below letting me know which forward-facing sonar you think is best even better let me know what score you would give each fish finder in each category based on this video i'd love to see if your perspective differs from mine because i fish for bass and i use my forward-facing sonars in a very specific way maybe the way you guys use it is going to change the scores again this is all based on my opinion but hopefully i gave you enough examples that you can see which fish finder may be best based on your experience and what you're looking for again thanks for checking out this video and we'll see on the next one you

Channel: Fish the Moment

Views: 251,864

Keywords: Mega Live, Humminbird Mega Live, Humminbird Mega Live Review, Humminbird Mega Live Imaging, Humminbird Mega Live Image Vs Garmin Livescope, Humminbird Mega Live Vs Garmin Livescope, Garmin Livescope vs Lowrance Active target, Garmin Livescope Vs Humminbird Mega Live, Lowrance Active Target vs Garmin Livescope, Lowrance Active Target Vs Humminbird Mega Live, Humminbird Mega Live imaging review, Lowrance Active target review, Garmin Livescope Review

Id: V6Rr5g7RXCk

Length: 31min 25sec (1885 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 05 2021