What's in a Ready-to-Fish Garmin Bundle? An Unboxing and Setup Walkthrough

Buying a Garmin LiveScope system is one thing. Building the entire portable setup around it is another.

You need the electronics, but you also need somewhere to mount them, a battery that fits the setup, a way to control the transducer, the right hardware and a plan for keeping all of it portable. If you're starting from scratch, there are quite a few pieces to figure out before you ever get to the fishing part.

That's why we started offering ready-to-fish Garmin bundles at Summit.

Instead of sending you a pile of individual components and leaving you to figure out how they all go together, we build the major pieces into a portable Summit setup before it leaves us. You still need to make a few choices when ordering, like screen size and battery capacity, but the goal is to take as much of the guesswork out of the process as possible.

So what actually comes in one?

Let's open one up.

Start With the Electronics

The electronics are obviously the heart of the setup, and the exact components depend on which Garmin bundle you choose.

Our traditional Summit Shuttle Ice Fishing Bundle with Garmin Electronics is built around Garmin LiveScope Plus with the LVS34 system. The current bundle can be configured with a Garmin ECHOMAP UHD2 93SV 9-inch, ECHOMAP Ultra 2 106SV 10-inch or ECHOMAP Ultra 2 126SV 12-inch chartplotter.

We also now offer LiveScope 2 Ready-to-Fish bundles. The ice version uses the LVS42HD-IF LiveScope 2 transducer, while our open-water version is built around the LVS44. Both currently offer the same 9-, 10- and 12-inch Garmin display choices, with other configurations available by request. 

That's an important distinction when you're shopping because LiveScope Plus and LiveScope 2 aren't simply two names for the same setup.

The traditional LVS34 LiveScope Plus system uses Garmin's external sonar module. LiveScope 2 changes that arrangement by connecting the transducer directly to a compatible chartplotter, eliminating the separate GLS 10 from the portable setup.

From a portability standpoint, that's a meaningful change. There is simply less equipment that has to live on the shuttle.

But either way, the idea behind the Summit bundle is the same: you're not starting with a screen and then trying to figure out everything else afterward. You're choosing the Garmin system you want and building the portable setup around it.

The Summit Shuttle Brings the Setup Together

Next is the part that turns all those electronics into something you can actually carry.

The bundle is built around a Summit CNC Shuttle with pole holders, giving the graph, battery, wiring and sonar components a home instead of having everything spread across separate pieces of equipment. Both our LiveScope Plus and LiveScope 2 ready-to-fish ice bundles include the Summit Shuttle as the base of the system. 

That's really what makes this different from simply buying Garmin electronics. We aren't manufacturing the sonar system. Garmin does that.

What we've spent years working on is the part around it: how do you take expensive fishing electronics and make them easier to carry, organize and use as a portable system?

The shuttle keeps the major components together so the setup can move with you. That's useful on the ice when you're going from hole to hole, but it's also why portable sonar has become popular with anglers who fish from different boats or don't want their electronics permanently tied to one location.

When we assemble a bundle, we're thinking about the whole package rather than treating the shuttle, electronics and power as unrelated products.

Then There's the Transducer Pole

A forward-facing sonar setup isn't complete just because the graph turns on.

You still need to control where the transducer is looking.

The Garmin ice bundle includes a Summit 24–60-inch forward-facing sonar carbon fiber transducer pole with an ice-mount tripod. The open-water LiveScope 2 bundle includes the 24–60-inch carbon fiber pole for use in an open-water setup. 

The pole is what allows you to independently aim the forward-facing sonar rather than relying on the direction of the boat or the position of the shuttle. On the ice, that means setting the tripod over the hole and rotating the transducer as you scan.

In open water, the same basic idea applies: you're able to control where the sonar is looking so you can find fish, stay on them and make the cast.

It's one of those pieces that can seem secondary when you're shopping for electronics, but once you're actually fishing with forward-facing sonar, you're going to have your hand on that pole a lot.

Choosing the Battery

The battery is one of the places where we deliberately give you a choice instead of deciding that everyone needs the same thing.

Current Garmin bundles can be configured with 20Ah, 32Ah or 52Ah Summit Lithium batteries, and the selected battery comes with its charger. 

Which one makes sense depends heavily on the screen you're choosing and how long you expect to fish.

For example, our current estimated runtimes for a 93SV with LiveScope are about 10 hours on 20Ah, 16 hours on 32Ah and 26 hours on 52Ah. Move into a larger display and the power demand changes. With a 12-inch screen and LiveScope, our estimates are approximately 3 hours on 20Ah, 10 hours on 32Ah and 16 hours on 52Ah. Actual runtime can vary with conditions, screen brightness and use. 

That's why we don't think about battery size as good, better and best.

A 52Ah battery gives you more capacity, but if you're running a smaller screen for shorter trips and care a lot about keeping the package light, carrying maximum capacity may not be necessary.

On the other hand, if you're running a larger graph and forward-facing sonar for long days, more capacity can make a lot of sense.

The battery should fit the electronics and the way you fish.

What Do You Actually Have to Do When It Arrives?

This is probably the question that matters most when somebody sees “ready to fish.”

The point of buying the bundle is that you shouldn't have to spend your first evening with it figuring out which components work together and building the portable system from scratch. We assemble the major components into the Summit Shuttle setup so you're starting much farther down the road than you would be if you ordered everything individually. That doesn't mean we'd recommend ripping the box open at the boat ramp and immediately heading onto the water.

When any new electronics setup arrives, take a little time at home first. Look everything over after shipping, familiarize yourself with how the shuttle is laid out, make sure your battery is charged, power the system on and learn the basic controls before your first trip.

If it's an ice setup, extend the transducer pole and get familiar with the tripod and how the transducer rotates. If it's an open-water setup, figure out how you want the pole positioned on your boat.

And if LiveScope itself is new to you, spend a little time learning what you're looking at on the screen. Forward-facing sonar becomes much more useful once aiming the transducer and interpreting the image start to feel natural. The bundle saves you from having to engineer the portable setup. It doesn't eliminate the value of learning your electronics.

The Real Point of a Ready-to-Fish Bundle

You can absolutely build a portable Garmin setup piece by piece.

Plenty of anglers do.

The challenge is that every decision creates another decision. Which shuttle? Will the electronics fit? What pole? Which transducer mount? What battery capacity? Will the battery fit the shuttle? What hardware am I forgetting?

That's especially frustrating if this is your first forward-facing sonar setup and you don't yet know which questions you're supposed to be asking.

A ready-to-fish bundle is our answer to that.

We take the Garmin electronics and combine them with the Summit gear we've built around forward-facing sonar portability—the shuttle, pole, power and mounting components—so you're starting with a system designed to work together.

You still get to make the choices that actually matter, like your screen size and battery capacity. We just take care of a lot of the little ones in between. Because when a box full of fishing electronics shows up at your door, the fun part should be figuring out where the fish are.

Not figuring out where all the hardware goes. Shop Summit Fishing Ready to Fish Bundles today!