Over the many decades of professional bass fishing, electronics have made more advances in a shorter time than any other item on a bass boat. These are even more advanced than the high-tech engines that push a bass boat today in speeds exceeding 80 MPH and are more fuel efficient and quieter than ever before. But nothing has created more controversy than the latest advancement in electronics. Forward-facing sonar is the newest and most controversial technology to come along maybe ever. Today I’ll give you my perspective as a guy who both uses and competes against guys that have one of these $5000 units on their boat.
Let’s start with the fact that I am not against any form of advancement that makes fishing better. Baseball has made changes to the ball itself in order to get more distance off the bat. Golf has made the same type of strides with their new and innovative advancements in both golf balls and the clubs, so much that golf has decided to pull the reins back and make golf balls that don’t fly as far because they are making certain golf courses obsolete.
Forward-facing sonar has created the same controversy with a unit that literally shows you fish swimming up to 100 feet away. You can see them in real time on a screen as big as the one in your living room. So why the controversy? Well, the fishing purists, or old timers as we call them, hate this new piece of equipment because they feel like some anglers (especially the younger anglers) have a distinct advantage. It’s made instant champions out of anglers who have just gone through puberty; young boys who have just put away their GI Joe collection.
No longer are fishing instincts or years of experience important like they were 10 years ago. Young anglers today are making a quicker rise to the professional ranks without having “paid their dues” like so many of the legends we know today. Tournament bass fishing is a whole new ballgame all due to forward-facing sonar. This technology has made finding fish too easy and allows anglers to target the bigger fish in the school and pick them off one big fish at a time.
That’s right, I said BIG fish. Here’s part of the controversy in that forward-facing sonar allows an angler to zero in on the bigger fish in a school, brush top or isolated stump, picking them off like black berry’s on the vine. This new technology is also a direct threat to the breeding population of bass and other species like crappie.
Gone are the days of an angler wasting time pulling into a pocket and fan casting for fish until he caught one. Now anglers pull into a cove, put the trolling motor down with a transducer for FF sonar and start to scan the area in a matter of seconds like some form of radar. They locate the fish and then attempt to catch those fish with whatever techniques work best.
It's still not clear where this new technology is headed with regards to tournaments. But it’s about 50/50 on opinions for or against it. The B.A.S.S. organization is going to interview anglers after each of their Elite Series events in 2024 in order to come to a conclusion, which may possibly result in rule changes for 2025. So, stay tuned…. more to come on this as we go further into the B.A.S.S. and Major League (MLF) tournament schedules.
Based on my personal experience and talking to people involved, I can see it both ways, either being banned or allowed. One benefit tournament, like the DeSpino Tire Children’s Miracle Network event on Toledo Bend, has decided to ban this technology in order to level the playing field. As far as I can report, this is the first tournament to make such a decision. It will be interesting to see if it affects the number of entries.
But as far as professional anglers are concerned on the topic, it all depends on which angler you ask. Here’s the bigger question; are we developing top level anglers today with this new technology or are we creating robotic angling nerds who don't have the skills that professional anglers should possess? These skills would include reading the water and understanding bass behavior and how they react under different conditions. Most young up-and-coming anglers today do not have this type of knowledge or the instincts to compete at the highest level WITHOUT this new forward-facing sonar.
Here’s a great example. A friend of mine fished the co-angler (amateur) side of a recent tournament at Sam Rayburn and drew a young 18-year-old as his pro for the day. Around mid-morning all the electronics went blank on his boat, sending the young angler into panic mode. He had no idea how to fish without his forward-facing sonar or how he would navigate the rest of the day. It was as if his XBOX video game went out and he could no longer play! This is just one example of how unprepared some of today’s young anglers are. Most do not possess the skills necessary to compete with anglers much older who have years of experience to fall back on if they lose their electronics.
In some ways, we are not doing a good job of developing the next generation of anglers. We are really setting them up for failure, especially if major organizations like the B.A.S.S. Elite Series and MLF (Major League Fishing) decide to ban this new technology. All this being said, these electronic companies who created this monster have too much money invested to just stop making them. Tournament anglers make up a small portion of the overall bass fishing population. Even if some tournament organizations decide to ban this technology, the average weekend warrior (non-tournament angler) will continue to use it.
Till next time, good luck, good fishing and make sure to apply your sunscreen even during the cold weather months.
Steve Graf Angler’s Perspective
