Forward-Facing Sonar Battle. Good, Bad, or Indifferent?
Ask any serious angler and they most likely will tell you "forward-facing sonar is the next best thing to swimming with the fish." Regardless of the brand, LiveScope®, Active-Target®, Mega Live Imaging®, or more, they all do and show more than ever. Old technology versus new technology. Instead of just projecting a cone down below the boat, forward-facing sonar looks ahead to find fish. Most impressive is the speed at which the fisherman sees the image on their screen. While traditional sonar gives you a slower scrolling 2-D image (still pretty good), forward-facing sonar produces a real-time 3-D image of what’s ahead, more similar to a live video feed. The purist call it “video-game fishing.” And because there’s no delay in the signal, anglers can spot a fish, cast to it, and watch the fish react on the screen. I guess it really is a little like video fishing.
Most anglers have optimized their approach to fishing so they can fully take advantage of this new, cutting-edge technology. Rather than making cast after cast with dozens of different lures, rigs, and setups, anglers can see the fish strike or turn-away and make the adjustments to get the bite. Some purest anglers lament the technology as cheating; while others embrace the latest technology and tell you it makes them more efficient with their time. Perhaps both are a little right. Outdoor Life Magazine recently said that “The technology also allows users to identify submerged structure very quickly, and, perhaps most controversially, to find and successfully target fish suspended in open water — a skill that many anglers have never tried to learn, and one that’s taken the pros many years to master.”
Recently, one of our company reps showed us the new Berkley® Krej Jerkbait which was designed specifically for forward-facing sonar. It was designed with an upturned lip that causes the lure to slide backwards, keeping it in the strike zone a tad bit longer. Anglers can actually watch baits hover above or in front of the fish, jiggle it a bit, move it a little more, and, hopefully, entice a bite. Good, bad, or indifferent, it does help; whether you want the help is up to you.
But no matter the endless opportunities offered, forward facing sonar still works only as well as the fisherman using it. Fishermen still need to adjust colors, settings, and angles on their forward facing sonar to fit the water and weather conditions. The risk, if this new sonar becomes standard for all anglers, is that it nudges the sport closer to “catching” than fishing. Anglers do seem to be catching more fish, larger fish, and spend less time doing it. I am pretty sure we are not going to stop it from being used. You know, as well as anyone, that technology doesn’t stop if consumers are buying, and there’s nothing any of us can do about that. As long as fishermen are buying it, installing it, and using it, the demand for newer, better, faster, and more advanced sonar will keep being developed. At the end of the day, we hope, fishermen are still having fun and spending more time enjoying the sport.
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