Forward-facing sonar has changed how bass are found, caught and even how tournaments are watched. Now tournament organizations are facing a harder question: How much technology is too much?

By GetTheNet.News Staff

The argument over forward-facing sonar isn’t going away.

If anything, the bass fishing world appears to be moving past the question of whether FFS has changed tournament fishing and into a much more complicated debate:

What should tournament organizations do about it?

On September 24, B.A.S.S. provided one of the strongest indications yet that compromise may become part of the future. The organization announced it will continue its split forward-facing-sonar format for the 2027 Bassmaster Elite Series, with some tournaments allowing live sonar and others prohibiting it. Even the 2027 Bassmaster Classic will enter the equation, with a coin flip determining whether live sonar will be permitted.

That announcement came after a 2026 Elite season in which B.A.S.S. deliberately tested its competitors under both conditions.

And perhaps more importantly, fans apparently watched both.

According to B.A.S.S., the non-FFS tournament at Lake Guntersville generated more than 21 million minutes of viewing across its digital platforms, making it the most-viewed regular-season Elite event. The FFS event on the St. Lawrence River finished close behind with more than 20 million minutes watched.

That may tell us something important.

The tournament fishing public may not necessarily want one side to win this argument.

They may want to see both.

A Technology That Changed the Game

Forward-facing sonar—including systems such as Garmin LiveScope, Lowrance ActiveTarget and Humminbird MEGA Live—allows anglers to view fish, cover and their lure in real time in front of the boat.

The technology didn’t invent electronics in bass fishing.

Flashers changed fishing. GPS changed fishing. Side imaging changed fishing. Mapping changed fishing.

But FFS is different because an angler can locate an individual fish, watch that fish react to a lure and, in many situations, adjust the presentation while the fish is still visible.

For anglers who have mastered it, FFS has opened water that historically received far less tournament pressure. Suspended bass that might have been almost impossible to target consistently can now become part of a tournament strategy.

That ability has helped produce a new generation of anglers who are extraordinarily skilled at interpreting electronics, boat positioning and lure movement.

Calling that skill “just looking at a screen” badly understates what the best FFS anglers actually do.

But ignoring how much the technology has changed tournament strategy understates the other side of the debate just as badly.

And that is where this conversation gets touchy.

What Exactly Are We Trying to Protect?

Opponents of unrestricted FFS often raise several concerns.

Some believe tournament bass fishing is becoming too dependent on electronics and less dependent on traditional skills such as seasonal pattern recognition, reading shoreline cover, understanding current, flipping, cranking, dock fishing and making instinctive adjustments throughout the day.

Others worry about economics.

Tournament bass fishing was never cheap, but competitive electronics packages can now represent a substantial investment. Anglers who don’t have the newest technology can wonder whether they are competing against another fisherman—or against another fisherman’s equipment budget.

There is also a question of presentation.

Some fans love watching an angler stalk a suspended bass on sonar and seeing the fish react to the lure in real time.

Others would rather watch someone burn a spinnerbait through flooded bushes, flip a laydown, crank a point or dissect a stretch of docks.

Major League Fishing acknowledged that division when it began placing limits on FFS. MLF said its research found viewers preferred seeing a variety of techniques, while surveys of competitors showed something much less definitive: anglers were divided over whether FFS should be banned or remain unrestricted.

That split may be the most accurate description of tournament fishing today.

There isn’t one tournament angler.

There are thousands of them, with different budgets, different strengths, different ages and very different opinions about what competitive bass fishing ought to look like.

The Major Trails Are Taking Different Roads

Instead of the industry settling on one answer, 2026 has effectively become a laboratory.

B.A.S.S. divided its Elite schedule between FFS and non-FFS events. Its 2026 Opens also alternated technology availability at selected tournaments, and that philosophy will continue into 2027.

Major League Fishing chose another route.

At the Bass Pro Tour level, anglers are limited to using forward-facing and 360-degree sonar during only one of three competition periods each day. At the Pro Circuit, Toyota Series and BFL levels, MLF adopted variations of a continuous three-hour FFS window. The organization uses equipment lockouts, cameras, officials or co-anglers depending on the circuit to help enforce the restrictions.

The National Professional Fishing League went considerably farther. Its 2026 rules prohibit FFS during official practice and competition, requiring the equipment to be removed or secured through a league lockout procedure.

Texas trails are experimenting too.

The Texas Team Trail’s 2026 rules allow LiveScope and other scanning or identification electronics during official practice and tournament competition.

Team Trail Outdoors came up with one of the more unusual compromises: competitors cannot use FFS until they first put a five-fish limit in the livewell. Once the limit is secured, FFS can be turned on for the remainder of the tournament day. For the 2027 season they will ban FFS Completely.

Then there is Central Texas’ TuffMan Series.

TuffMan Tries the Alternating Approach

For the 2026-27 season, the TuffMan Series isn’t trying to declare a winner in the FFS argument.

It’s making competitors fish both ways.

Lake Limestone opened the season as an FFS event. Stillhouse Hollow on October 4 will be NON-FFS. Richland Chambers returns to FFS, Lake Whitney will be NON-FFS and Lake Belton will allow FFS.

Then comes the two-day championship at Lake Waco.

Day One: FFS.

Day Two: NON-FFS.

That means a team hoping to win the championship cannot build its entire season around one method.

Eventually, it has to prove it can compete under both sets of rules.

TuffMan has gone another step during its FFS tournaments. Teams that voluntarily have their forward-facing sonar locked out before competition can compete for an additional $500 NON-FFS Bonus, awarded to the highest-finishing eligible team fishing without FFS.

During the September 13 season opener at Lake Limestone, 83 teams competed. Kevin Allen and John Scott earned the first $500 NON-FFS Bonus after weighing 17.22 pounds while competing with their FFS locked out.

For NON-FFS tournaments, TuffMan requires prohibited transducers to be removed or disconnected and secured with serialized locking devices or tamper-evident seals. Traditional 2D sonar, side imaging, down imaging and GPS mapping remain legal.

The enforcement issue matters because writing a NON-FFS rule is easy.

Proving compliance is much harder.

And tournament organizations around the country are discovering that any restriction has to answer a second question almost immediately:

How are you going to police it?

What Does the Science Actually Say?

One argument surrounding FFS deserves particular care—the claim that forward-facing sonar is damaging bass populations.

The scientific picture isn’t nearly that simple.

A newly published 2026 study in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management examined professional tournament data from eight Major League Fishing events where anglers could use live-imaging sonar during only one of three daily competition periods.

Researchers found that the influence of live-imaging sonar on catch rates varied significantly by fishery.

FFS provided greater advantages in some deeper, more open-water environments. Anglers catching bass in deep water were nearly three times as likely to be using live-imaging sonar.

But researchers did not find that bass caught with live-imaging sonar were generally heavier than fish caught without it, and the technology provided less advantage in shallow, complex shoreline cover.

That matters.

The real biological question may eventually prove to be less about whether FFS is universally “good” or “bad” for fisheries and more about where, when and how anglers use it.

A deep, clear reservoir with suspended offshore bass may present a completely different situation than a shallow lake dominated by grass, timber and shoreline cover.

The science is developing just as quickly as the tournament rules.

The Young Guys Versus the Old Guys?

One of the easiest ways to describe the FFS argument is also one of the least helpful:

Young anglers versus old anglers.

It makes for a good social-media fight.

It doesn’t accurately describe tournament fishing.

There are veteran anglers who have embraced live sonar and younger anglers who can flip, crank, drag a Carolina rig or fish shallow with anybody.

Likewise, becoming exceptional with forward-facing sonar requires skills that did not exist in tournament fishing a generation ago.

Screen interpretation.

Boat positioning.

Transducer control.

Target tracking.

Casting accuracy at fish that may constantly be moving.

Reading a fish’s reaction and changing lure speed, depth or presentation instantly.

Those are skills.

So are reading a windblown bank, understanding how bass position on a point, skipping a jig beneath a dock or recognizing the right piece of flooded timber without seeing a fish first.

Maybe the better question isn’t which skill set is legitimate.

Maybe tournament organizations should be asking how many different skills they want their champions to possess.

The Real Stakes Are Bigger Than Sonar

Tournament directors aren’t making these decisions in a vacuum.

They have anglers to keep.

Sponsors to satisfy.

Manufacturers who invest heavily in tournament fishing.

Fans to attract.

Entry numbers to maintain.

Payouts to fund.

And credibility to protect.

Restrict FFS too heavily and some competitors will argue that tournament organizations are turning back technological progress—and potentially diminishing the value of electronics they spent thousands of dollars purchasing.

Allow everything without restriction and another group may decide tournament fishing no longer resembles the sport they want to compete in.

There may simply be no rule that makes everybody happy.

MLF’s experience with its three-hour format illustrates the balancing act. Early in the 2026 season, the organization reported improvements in co-angler catches at several comparable events and said participation and viewer response to the restricted format had been encouraging. Those results are MLF’s own assessment and will need to be judged across a longer period, but they provide another data point in a debate that until recently was driven largely by opinions.

And now B.A.S.S. has supplied another.

Its two most-watched regular-season Elite events of 2026 came from opposite sides of the sonar debate—one without FFS and one with it.

Maybe that shouldn’t be surprising.

Bass anglers like watching bass get caught.

Where Does Tournament Fishing Go From Here?

Forward-facing sonar isn’t going away.

Neither is traditional fishing.

The more interesting question is whether tournament trails will continue trying to force those two worlds to choose between each other.

The early answer appears to be no.

B.A.S.S. is alternating tournaments.

MLF is limiting time.

NPFL has chosen prohibition.

Team Trail Outdoors requires teams to earn a limit before turning FFS on.

Texas Team Trail continues allowing the technology during competition.

TuffMan is alternating entire events, splitting its championship and even offering bonus money to teams willing to compete without FFS during tournaments where the technology is otherwise legal.

There is no consensus.

But perhaps there doesn’t need to be one.

Different tournament trails have always separated themselves through entry fees, payouts, schedules, qualifying systems, off-limits rules and championship formats.

FFS rules may simply become another part of a trail’s identity.

And ultimately the market may have something to say about it.

Anglers will decide which tournaments they enter.

Fans will decide which tournaments they watch.

Sponsors will decide where they invest.

Tournament organizations will watch participation numbers.

And fisheries managers will continue studying what the technology actually does to fish populations rather than what social media says it does.

The Great FFS Debate probably isn’t going to be settled by one rule, one tournament organization or one angry Facebook thread.

It may instead be settled gradually, tournament by tournament and season by season.

And maybe that’s exactly what bass fishing needs.

Let the different formats compete.

Then let the anglers—and the results—do the talking.