It’s no secret that the use of forward-facing sonar has become the hottest topic in bass fishing in the past few years, and it’s easily the most debated… even among the pros.
Just about every serious bass angler on the water is using some form of sonar to help them have a better understanding of the water around them. Mapping is an important tool for understanding the depth contours you’re fishing in, as well as marking waypoints for areas you want to come back to fish. Down imaging, side imaging, and even your standard 2-D sonar give you a picture of what is under your boat and to the side of your boat as you move along in the water. It’s helpful in identifying fish, bait, structure, and cover… you’re no longer fishing completely blind.
Forward-facing sonar, or as it is commonly known by the Garmin brand name, LiveScope, is a bit different though. It gives you a real-time picture of what’s in front of you with extreme detail of where and when your bait hits the water, and how it moves throughout the retrieve. You can see a fish on FFS, cast directly to it, keep your baits perfectly in the strike zone, and watch it chase your bait until it bites… it’s pretty cool.
The “Cheater Box” Debate
But that’s also why some people call it “video game fishing” or the “cheater box.” It has certainly revolutionized the game the same way other sonar tech and mapping has over the years, but most of the division seems to stem from one issue in particular… the young kids fishing are REALLY good with it, and the old veterans… not as much.
We’ve seen anglers like Jacob Wheeler dominate Major League Fishing’s Bass Pro Tour in recent years, winning 4 times since his 2019 debut, and never placing worse than 4th. Regarded as a great “scoper,” Wheeler has been one of the best in the sport. But when the Bass Pro Tour changed the rules and only allowed FFS in one period of each tournament, Wheeler still won in 2025, and then just finished second in 2026. Point being, with or without LiveScope… the dude can straight-up fish.
Same goes for Bassmaster Elite Series Angler of the Year, Trey McKinney. A number of bozos in the comments sections claim the 21-year-old Illinois native can only win if he’s scoping. But after finishing in second place two years in a row, Bassmaster instituted a coin flip for forward-facing sonar in the 2026 season, meaning it was only allowed to be used at all in about half of the tournaments (5 of the 9). And guess what? Trey, who allegedly can only win by scoping, won the whole damn thing. And in those 4 non-forward-facing sonar events, the 21-year-old finished 9th, 15th, 90th (he had boat trouble in that event), and 21st… pretty impressive, eh?
I caught up with Trey last week to chat about all things bass fishing, his historic AOY win, his record smallmouth bag, and more. I straight-up asked him if it felt good to silence the haters a little bit with his Angler of the Year win now that LiveScope wasn’t permitted in half the events.
And naturally, he confessed that it felt really good to go out there and prove that he can fish with the best of them, scope or no scope:
“Absolutely. It feels good to tell them like, ‘Hey man, like look, I can fish without it. I just choose not to.’ I just want to catch the biggest fish I possibly can. I’m just trying to catch the biggest and the most. LiveScope is the best tool for that. And that’s why I learned it and tried to master it in a quick period of time because I understood, you know?
There’s a lot of talk outside the industry or in the industry, but our 100 anglers, the drama that we have out there with LiveScope… honestly, they had the tool before any of us did. The older crowd did, and they just chose not to, I guess, learn it. And now they realize that they kind of messed up, and they’re trying to do something about it. That’s kind of the first way is like, almost guilt-tripping you into being like, ‘No, it’s not—that’s not real fishing,’ just because you’re so good with a tool.
And then I come back with, ‘Okay, what about Side Scan when that first came out?’ Well, you know, Kevin VanDam won everything, he won just because of mapping. Literally, Kevin VanDam will tell you he won two tournaments back-to-back just because he had the best mapping on LakeMaster and Side Scan. There’s so many different things, it’s just tools. People get all touchy about it.
It’d be like hunting without onX, man, you’d be blind as a bat. It’s hard… you’re going to cut off a deer and you’re looking at this ravine, ‘Okay, I’m gonna switch around here, I can switch back and go up it and come back down, and I’m right where I want to be.’ Without that, you know, it’s a little hard to understand it.
It’s just tools that help you do the game in my opinion. But yeah, it does. It felt really good to tell people like, ‘Hey, you know, I was catching fish way before LiveScope, it’s just LiveScope makes that so much better for me.’ Because it’s a tool that allows me to do it, so yeah, it did. It felt really good.”
Efficiency is Everything
At the end of the day, forward-facing sonar is a tool that primarily makes anglers more efficient.
Yes, you can absolutely see individual fish on FFS, but one of the primary ways I personally use it is to cast into weedlines. Here in Wisconsin, where I live and fish, weedline fishing is one of the most common patterns, especially in the summertime. Bass just love to camp out right on the edges of those deep weedlines… depending on clarity, we’re talking about 10-20 feet deep. So for me, I use my MEGA Live 2 to drop my jig right there into the edge of those weeds… I can’t see any fish, but I can be confident that my bait is going exactly where I want it to.
It’s all about efficiency, and for Trey, who is fishing high-stakes tournaments, efficiency is the most important thing on the water:
“You got eight hours, man. That’s it. You got eight hours to put that bait in the highest percentage area every single cast, and that’s what it allows us to do. I forget where I was… I was fishing a brush pile, and about 15 casts later I hadn’t hit my brush pile, and I was getting pretty frustrated.
So that is definitely the main thing to me, is just being efficient. Like, you know how many fish people think that I catch on LiveScope that I never saw the fish? I literally was just going down the bank, I’m like, ‘Oh, that piece of cover looks good,’ flip my jig in it, you know, just kind of stroke it around in it and I’m just trolling away, you know, I’m just fishing in that high-percentage area and all of a sudden it goes thunk, and I swing and catch a 5-, 6-pounder.
And they’re like, ‘Oh, LiveScope.’ I’m like, ‘No, dude, I saw the laydown, I was able to flip to it in an efficient way, fish the three or four best parts of that laydown, and move to the next.’ So yeah, your point right there is by far the most important one on the topic to me. I just like being efficient honestly.”
Case closed.
We’ll see Trey defend his title once again next year, with an even tougher schedule. The 2027 Bassmaster Elite Series schedule was came out earlier this week, and there’s gonna be some grimy spots that are going to require anglers to be as versatile and detailed as possible, both with and without, forward facing sonar.
I think Trey is up to the challenge.
