Americana Outdoors E-Magazine - July 2018 - ICAST Edition

GARMIN PANOPTIX LIVESCOPE™ WINS BEST OF SHOW AT ICAST

ICAST is one of the largest trade shows for the fishing industry. Companies and vendors travel from different states, countries, and even conti- nents, showing off new products and networking amongst the fishing community. Being such a large scale event, with all eyes of the fishing indus- try focused on Orlando, FL for several days, com- panies use this week as an opportunity to launch new products. At this year’s show, one of the com- panies creating the most chatter is Garmin. Introducing what can only be described as revo- lutionary technology roughly one month before the show, the Garmin booth was packed during the opening morning of the show. Anglers, brand rep- resentatives and various event goers packed into the booth to get a look at the new Panoptix Live- Scope™ . The new technology from Garmin is a live scanning sonar that gives anglers higher resolu- tion and easier-to-interpret images of structure, bait and fish swimming below the boat.

Anglers are raving about the definition of the im- ages provided by Panoptix LiveScope™. Profes- sional angler Fred Roumbanis recounted a recent tournament stop where he claimed overall big bass for the event. At Lake Oahe in South Dakota, Roumbanis weighed in a 5 plus pound smallmouth that he caught with the help from Garmin electron- ics. He flipped a drop shot into open water and saw a fish begin to swim towards his bait. From the images provided, Roumbanis could tell he was about to get bit by a giant smallmouth. Long story short, the fish ate the bait and was hauled into the boat. Fish tales such as these will continue as the capabilities of this technology are limitless. “We took scanning sonar and made it Panoptix,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of global consumer sales. “By combining two game-chang- ing innovations – scanning sonar and live sonar – Panoptix LiveScope delivers the best of both tech- nologies and there’s nothing out there even close