The FFS Controversy: Are Modern Fish Finders Innovative or Uncompetitive?

Several innovations and technological advances have reshaped the sport fishing industry over the past few decades, from better lures to improved performance wear. However, perhaps no advance has done more to change the game—or created as much controversy and debate—as forward-facing sonar.

Finding Fish Over the Decades

Fish finders have been part of the sport fishing experience for decades. Building on sonar developments from World War II, a pair of brothers in Japan put their skills as radio repairmen to use in pursuit of a tool that would help the fishermen in their area locate schools of fish. Traditionally, fishermen had interpreted the presence of air bubbles produced by fish to locate schools. The Furuno brothers theorized that they could use sonar to locate these bubbles more effectively. Ultimately, they found that they could detect the fish themselves with through-hull transducer technology, and in 1948 they released the Furuno Fish Finder.

Sonar-powered fish finders made their way into the American recreational fishing scene in the 1950s, with the first readily available unit being the Lowrance Fish Lo-K-Tor. At first, some anglers eyed these devices suspiciously due to the “unfair advantage” that they provided, but they ultimately gained widespread acceptance. 

Fish finder technology evolved throughout the 1960s-1980s, then saw game-changing progress in the 1990s with the introduction of the LCD screen. Combined with GPS, charting tools, and transducers, these compact, easy-to-use units made it infinitely easier for the average angler to chart voyages and find fish.

From the 1990s through the 2010s, fish finders depended on sonar that scanned beneath or to the sides of the boat and provided a readout of the fish, bottom contours, and submerged vegetation that the boat had passed. While this is valuable information that experienced anglers can use to predict fish behavior, it’s not a real-time view. This all changed with the introduction of forward-facing sonar.

Forward-Facing Sonar

Forward-facing sonar uses advanced transducers to provide a 360-degree, real-time sonar picture of what is happening not just below and behind a boat, but everywhere within a few hundred meters—including what’s in front of the boat. This means anglers can now see real-time images of the fish, vegetation, and underwater structures they are approaching, in a surprising amount of detail. They can see fish entering and exiting areas of cover, for example, and their lure or bait moving in the water. Though it doesn’t provide a camera or video view, forward-facing sonar is like a live feed of what’s happening underwater all around a boat. 

The impact of this technological advancement has been enormous, as it can remove much of the guesswork from fishing, to the point that anglers can locate and identify a target fish and cast directly to it—in some cases even watching it take the lure. Tracking entire schools of fish is even easier, due to their size and footprint on the sonar readout, which means that even deep-sea fishing is becoming predictable.

Useful or Too Powerful?

There are two general schools of thought when it comes to forward-facing sonar in fishing. On the one hand, the tool can greatly increase the strike rate of recreational anglers. They now can waste much less time aimlessly trolling or seeking to turn past data into predictions about the current location of schools. Forward-facing sonar has also revolutionized the fishing tournament scene, with some of the world’s best anglers taking their competitive fishing to the next level with the technology. Advocates of the technology see it as a natural evolution in fishing equipment and just another tool in the angler’s kit.

However, there is also a contingent of anglers who see forward-facing sonar as stripping the soul out of fishing. Like detractors of the early fish finders, they feel that the tech provides an unfair advantage and makes fishing too easy. Not only does it allow an angler to “master” a lake or other body of water quickly, it also enables them to preemptively select trophy fish to target and even to cast repeatedly at the same fish with different lures or bait. Simultaneously, they can watch the fish on a digital screen and adjust their technique to its response.

Some of those opposed to the tech also argue that it takes what used to be a nature-based activity and digitizes it, essentially turning fishing into a video game. Finally, some people dislike forward-facing sonar because they think it simply creates an elitist approach to fishing. Anglers who can afford this more expensive technology have a built-in advantage—a major departure from professional fishing’s traditional “everyman” ethos, as well as the simplicity of fishing that many people enjoy.

In the end, however, forward-facing sonar is an optional piece of equipment. Anglers who go fishing to relax and unplug from their screens can still do so easily. Those who are interested in competing in tournaments or reeling in a trophy fish can use forward-facing sonar if they wish.

Regardless of one’s opinion on the technology, the reality is that it is one of the most disruptive technological innovations to hit fishing in some time.