2023 Rewind: Forward-Facing Sonar

Video Transcription

What's up everybody? This is the 2023 rewind of forward facing sonar. Have you ever heard of it before? Well, that's right. We've talked about it every day. It seems like here to the point of annoyance at times, but I'll be honest. It's just one of those things right now that is dominating the world of fishing . We're hearing about it in all across different species now and regionality across the country. It is breaking down all those barriers and becoming the most effective tool out there in a lot of anglers, arsenals. What we wanted to do was take a look at everybody who works here's favorite baits they use in conjunction with forward facing sonar this year. And I went with the low hanging fruit here. That would be Gussy's scented Z-Man's Scented Jerk ShadZ. Gussy's color here, the Blue Glimmer, and obviously Gussy made this the home run of the year with winning the Bassmaster Classic on this bait. And then you've got Northland's Smeltinator jigs. That's right. If you're not familiar here, the the Smeltinator Jig Head which Gussy popularized and a bunch of our Canadian buddies up there popularized this jig. For fishing forward facing sonar, just the moping technique in general, even when they were doing it via 2D sonar pre-forward facing sonar. This jig head was kind of the standard in that. We carried him from Bass Tactics previously and now Northland is manufacturing these jigs and distributing these jigs with Gamakatsu hooks. Trust me, they the finishes are beautiful. I've checked them out now. They pass the test. Good job Northland. So hopefully these will be more available readily available for all you out there and a bunch of cool colors and hook sizes and all that from Gamakatsu hooks. And these cool finishes from Northland tackle now has the Smeltinator jig. Both of these two are fished in conjunction together. And you hang them vertically. I have done a little bit of kind of strolling with it myself. This year I gained a lot of confidence in this. I went up to Rainey Lake and had one of the best weekends I've had a fishing in a long long time doing Gussy's deal the moping technique and utilizing forward facing sonar. So this was mine. Let's check out with the rest of the team what their favorite baits were in the rewind of forward facing sonar for 2023.

Hey guys, Kipp here. Wanted to talk to you about a forward facing sonar bait that stood out for me this past year. I'm by no means a forward facing expert but this one has been pretty impressive. So this is the YUM FF minnow. FF standing for forward facing. And there's a couple of features that makes it stick out in my opinion. So it's a minnow profile which kind of dominates the forward facing world. But one key factor for me is that it's actually made of a denser plastic. So you can feel it right out of the package. It's a dense material and what that does is it gives a stronger signal from your active target or your live scope. So it's going to be a little bit brighter on your graph for you. And then it actually has a flat spot on the top too. So if you 're vertical jigging that flat spot is going to give you a stronger read as well. So if you're trying to find a new forward facing sonar bait for this year, pair this with your favorite jig head and go catch them.

What's up everyone? This is Matt. I'm usually behind the camera at Omnia so you usually don't see me. But I had to come around and talk about the Rapala Mavrik jerkbait because watching people fish with it this summer, watching Seth Feider fish with it this summer, he was just catching them left and right on this thing. So I would absolutely say this is a great forward facing sonar bait. You can see it beautifully. I didn't have a single problem pointing the camera at his screens, his graphs to see this thing. You can definitely tell where this is in the water and it catches so many fish.

For me personally, I really liked the Deps Sakamata shad. This thing is awesome. You got it in the regular plastic version as well as the heavily weighted plastic version. Difference between these two, generally you're going to fish the regular one with the jig head and if you want it unweighted, the heavily weighted plastic is the route to go. So Deps Sakamata shad, check them out.

My favorite forward facing sonar bait of the year was actually an A rig, specifically a Minnesota rig. This is not a Minnesota rig but my favorite was a Minnesota rig. I loved getting it out. Shows up nice big profile and it's so much fun watching fish. Come up, get behind it and then eat it. Doesn't get much better than that.

What's up everyone? Joe from Omnia here and these are my favorite baits. When I was using forward facing sonar this year, I have Mega Live on my boat. I fish with everyone else 's boats, Active Target 2, um, Garmin LVS 34. Um, my choice has been jerkbait fishing . I did it mostly in the fall and springtime for smallmouth. All styles of jerkbaits are great for forward facing sonar. My favorite is the Megabass Vision 110 series is the classic 110 and the 110+1. I love these styles that have either chartreuse or an orange belly on them for smallmouth fishing. It seems like you get a few more bites on the water. Make sure you check out the Megabass vision 110. (music)