Steve Graf

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 at speeds exceeding 80 MPH and are more fuel-efficient and quieter than ever. But nothing has created more controversy than the latest advancement in electronics. Forward-facing sonar is the newest and most controversial technology, maybe ever. Today, I’ll give you my perspective as a guy who uses and competes against guys with one of these $ 5,000 units on their boat.

Let’s start with the fact that I am not against any advancement that improves fishing. Baseball has changed the ball to get more distance off the bat. Golf has made the same type of strides with their new and innovative advancements in golf balls and clubs, so much so 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 shows 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.

Fishing instincts or years of experience are no longer as important as they were 10 years ago. Young anglers today are making a quicker rise to the professional ranks without having “paid their dues” like 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: 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 blackberries on the vine. This new technology also directly threatens 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 still needs to be made clear where this new technology is headed with regard to tournaments. But it’s about 50/50 on opinions for or against it. The B.A.S.S. organization will interview anglers after each of their Elite Series events in 2024 to come to a conclusion, which may 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 experience and talking to people involved, I see it both ways: 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 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, 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 lack this 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 setting them up for failure, especially if major organizations like the B.A.S.S. Elite Series and MLF (Major League Fishing) ban this new technology. All this being said, these electronic companies who created this monster have invested too much money just to 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.

Until next time, good luck, good fishing, and make sure to apply your sunscreen even during the cold weather months.