09/16/2026
Garmin LVS42HD — First Trip / First Impressions 🎣
Finally got my first few hours on the water with the new LVS42HD. I intentionally fished an area I had never fished before, so I was learning the unit and the water at the same time.
PROS:
1. Excellent clarity
2. Better target separation
3. Impressive detail
4. Picked up structure/artifacts that my LVS34 didn’t show nearly as well
CONS / THINGS I’M STILL WORKING ON:
1. There is definitely a learning curve.
2. Mine occasionally lagged/froze for a few seconds.
3. Calibration failed every time I attempted it.
4. Bait tracking was a little more challenging, but I’m not judging that yet until I get everything dialed in.
5. In my opinion, if you’re regularly fishing beyond about 30 feet deep, the 42HD probably isn’t the unit I’d choose.
Before connecting it, I updated my graph to the newest software per Garmin’s recommendation. I also restored the 42HD to factory-default settings as recommended.
Garmin will be producing an update in the near future for the lagging ( it occurred maybe once a hour for about 4-5 seconds)
It did complete calibration just had too much interference. I’m still unsure whether the calibration issue could have anything to do with the ferrite beads. The LVS42 doesn’t come with them, and I currently have the ones from my LVS34 setup. I may remove them and see if anything changes.
As far as actually fishing with it, I caught several fish. The biggest challenge was that I was chasing fish about the size of shad 😂, so distinguishing baitfish from tiny crappie wasn’t exactly helping my learning curve. I never saw any big fish, and I only planned on fishing a few hours before the heat became unbearable anyway. So truthfully I went out with zero expectations.
Overall: After day one, fishing completely uncharted territory, I still consider the LVS42HD a good upgrade.
