I played around with the Livescope some last summer on my boat at home. I used an old transom mount trolling motor that I gutted for the transducer, the plan was to take the transom mount for use on the smaller 12'-16' cache boats on the remote lakes where I usually fish, but I never got around to that. On my home lake in the summer I only fish for walleye, I prefer to backtroll, do not use my bow mount motor, but instead use a Vantage transom mount trolling motor. I tried the transducer on that originally, but found due to wind and other factors it was not going to work like I hoped, so I rigged up the home made apparatus and hung it off the side of the boat where I could point it where I wanted. Seeing walleye does not seem to be much of a problem, keeping the lure in sight while backtrolling is more of an issue, especially in wind, I definitely do not have that mastered yet. I fish for lake trout in open water with a jig and minnow, do not pull a big rig behind like many do, I did not take it in to any of the remote trout lakes last summer, but think that just like in the winter, the Panoptix would be a good tool for trout, as you can see them from such a great distance, it would just be a matter of keeping the lure in sight to assist in the catch. No real answers for you, but would say for ice fishing the Panoptix/Livescope is the ultimate at this time, open water fishing is just an added bonus.
