Screen Scene: Fast Forward with Forward-Facing Sonar

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Unless your head has been buried in the lake sand over the last couple of years, the constant conversation around live or forward-facing sonar has been dominating the fishing space. And frankly, some clear lines have been drawn in that same lake sand as to whether the technology should be allowed on the top levels of the bass, walleye, crappie, and muskie tournament trails.

While the back-and-forth continues, this article is not to take sides, but rather to illustrate how this sonar technology can help you catch more fish and learn more about fish behavior than any sort of device out there, in a fraction of the time. It can be eye opening to see fish interact with your presentation, or navigate weedlines, rockpiles, stumps—you name it. That type of subsurface perspective will enlighten you and set the course to be more productive.

For the sake of our discussion, forward-facing sonar is in reference to three primary flavors: Garmin Livescope, Humminbird Mega Live, and Lowrance ActiveTarget.

Gauge Temperament

Learning to identify fish type and size only comes with time on the water, but fish shapes can become recognizable. Muskies and pike, for example, appear quite large and elongated, bass are usually oval-shaped blobs, and walleyes are typically longer with a slight hump in the middle. Baitfish and panfish are smaller, generally round and collected in numbers. These aren’t hard and fast facts, but learning to identify what you’re looking at will help you make a decision to stay or leave.

Small or low-profile presentations show as a stronger return when they’re closer to the boat, but the farther out you toss those baits, the less clear they’ll be  on the screen. Hardbaits like jerkbaits, glidebaits, and crankbaits—even Alabama rigs—generate a bright, obvious return, and you’ll be able to see following fish. If they swim up to investigate and swim away, the fish may want something slower or smaller. If they swing in and aggressively attack the lure, you know you’re onto something.

A great example would be muskie fishing with suckers in late fall. Suckers are slow-trolled at about 0.5 to 1 mph. This fall, we rigged a Mega Live transducer on a FishFinderMounts.com Gen3 Live Sonar Mount kit that scanned out the back of the boat at the two suckers. We were able to see multiple muskies come in and investigate the suckers, maybe harass them a bit before swimming away. We then marked the spots on our LakeMaster mapping, just as you would with a following fish, to return later. It worked on multiple occasions—those are fish that would have gone unnoticed otherwise.

Boat Control

It’s easy to see why forward-facing sonar gets so much attention, when watching fish is the most attractive part. Most savvy anglers will tell you they use the technology to search for specific structural elements and maintain precise boat control more than watching fish consume their offering. Putting a bait in the right place consistently yields more results.

No matter the brand of electronics rigged on your boat, none of them can see through dense vegetation such as summertime coontail or cabbage. There are occasions when a bright return may appear near the weededge, indicating an ambushing fish, but knowing the exact location of ideal cover is information you can’t put a price tag on—you just never know what’s going to swim out and eat.

Learn to marry boat control and forward-facing sonar. The only way to become good is through time on the water with your foot on the trolling motor pedal, chin down examining scrolling screens of information.

Alternate Perspectives

The most popular viewing method is standard forward perspective. This mode has many applications and works well for anglers on the move looking for active fish.

I also suggest experimenting with Humminbird’s Landscape mode, Garmin’s Perspective mode, or Lowrance’s Scout mode. Basically, you’d turn the transducer 90 degrees so the vertical view you typically look at in forward mode turns sideways to a near-panoramic view.

I find the forward view to be most applicable across various scenarios, especially with one transducer in play. But the power of both perspectives at the same time is hard to discount—that means adding a transducer to your program. The combination allows you to experience structure and cover in ways never before possible.

The down perspective also deserves some experimentation. We use this application a lot while ice fishing, but it works well fishing vertically when fish are positioned in deeper water directly beneath the boat. Presentations like drop-shotting for smallmouths or using a Jigging Rap for walleyes in the fall are ideally matched with this perspective.

Dial In

Knowing your unit’s settings helps you maximize production of high-quality images—an important aspect of forward-facing sonar. A forward-facing sonar transducer may experience interference if positioned too close, or in the path of another active transducer. An easy fix might be adding a networking box to your kit—Humminbird’s 5-port Ethernet hub features interference-rejecting technology built into the unit to help produce the cleanest picture possible.

Work with contrast and sensitivity settings. Too much contrast and you lose low-profile baits on-screen; too much sensitivity adds clutter, which can confuse your lure’s profile. Humminbird’s system offers a Dynamic Contrast setting that’s helpful when looking for a shortcut to a clean screen—it’s like a shortcut for the contrast dial.

I usually switch between manual and auto adjustments on the distances the transducer sees forward and beneath. If I’m fishing a consistent depth contour and similar structure, I leave it on auto; but when the fish are all over the place, especially during postspawn, I keep both forward and beneath distances under the manual setting and adjust the depth to where the fish seem to be staging, to maximize the consistency of the picture.

Clean Power

For the best image and system functionality, clean and adequate battery power is critical. We’re going to cover lithium power in an upcoming column, but for now I want to be clear that independent power for electronics is the secret. We run X2Power AGMs and lithiums on our TV boats and have the electronics powered by an independent 125-Ah lithium battery—nothing else is powered off this battery.

Independent power when combined with a system such as Humminbird’s One-Boat Network almost completely eliminates interference that dirties up a graph screen. If you’re going to spend money on the technology, you should also invest in the best power source.

Mounting Options

Most anglers are mounting forward-facing sonar transducers on their trolling motor. Be aware that anything less than a 52-inch shaft creates headaches. The added length provides the most consistent viewing angle, but what you’re looking at on sonar is determined by the trolling motor’s direction.

FishFinderMounts.com sells a number of mounting options if mounting the transducer on the trolling motor isn’t an option. They’re highly engineered, durable, and built by anglers for anglers, so you can count on the intuitiveness that comes standard.

Many anglers are experimenting with multiple mounting options. They’re also adding numbers of transducers and head units at different positions in the boat to present even more information about the layout of the area being fished, the fish, and the bait—all at once. It can seem ridiculous at first until you experience the strategy in action. It becomes quite impressive.

The good news is you can factor it into your arsenal however you see fit—there’s no wrong way to employ forward-facing sonar.

A final point: Forward-facing sonar is awesome and teaches you a tremendous amount about your target species. Without a solid foundation or willingness to spend plenty time with it on the water learning and observing, it won’t help you. You’ve got to commit to growing with it and be comfortable bending over and pushing buttons.