The serene act of fishing is undergoing a transformation, as anglers increasingly rely on advanced technology rather than just a rod and line.
Sophisticated forward-facing sonar, equipment potentially costing thousands of dollars, now offers a precise, real-time image of fish movements in the watery depths.
While popular devices are helping to increase catches, their proliferation is prompting serious questions about the very nature of the sport and the sustainability of fish populations.
Gary Korsgaden, who has written about fishing for decades, notes: “You’ve got people that are concerned about what’s going to happen to the sport of fishing.”
Fish-finding sonar is usually mounted on the bow or back of a boat, and sends out sound frequencies that are converted into a picture on a screen based on the time it takes the pings to hit the bottom and return.
Earlier products would show where fish were located, but advancements now enable anglers to see images of fish in real time.
“With forward-facing sonar, you can attach it to a trolling motor and you can look around the water under you and you could find exactly, pinpoint where that fish exactly is at any given time,” said Dave Dunn, a sales executive at Garmin, which manufactures the equipment.
Dunn says the equipment, which costs about $2,500 for a full setup, enables anglers to see their lures and cast directly to fish.
For Minnesota angler Terry Rehm, the new technology is invaluable. He doesn’t get a lot of lake time due to his work and children’s schedules and forward-facing sonar ensures he makes good use of his time plying the waters.
“It’s just nice to be able to hone in on them a little quicker and find them quicker and catch more fish when I’m out here,” he said.
Tens of millions of people fish recreationally each year, making it one of the top activities in the U.S.
But people fish for different reasons and those who care most about the tranquility and beauty of being on a lake can find it puzzling that other anglers eagerly hunch over their screens, watching as fish swim by below.
Still, the use of the technology is growing dramatically, with surveys in Minnesota finding about 30% of anglers now use forward-facing sonar. Surveys of anglers on several Minnesota lakes found the user rate as high as 63% on one lake last fall, Walleye Alliance spokesperson Nate Blasing said.
Much of the debate around forward-facing sonar plays out on social media, but also podcasts, online fishing forums, trade shows and tournaments.
“It’s much like politics now. It tends to get personal. You can agree to disagree,” Blasing said.
Criticisms and reactions go back and forth on social media, said Korsgaden, the fishing writer. He said tournament anglers have banned him from their Facebook pages for even raising the topic.
“I think the unfortunate reality is fishing has gotten to be more about, shall we say, success or numbers or quantity, that type of thing, instead of the actual enjoyment of the engagement and making decisions on your own,” Korsgaden said.
Anglers say the equipment helps ensure they will actually catch fish, but some studies indicate it hasn’t led to overfishing.
Wisconsin researchers conducted a controlled experiment in 2025 with two teams of anglers fishing for smallmouth bass, one with forward-facing sonar, the other without. Halfway through the summer, the teams switched.
The team without the technology had higher catch rates, though the team using it caught slightly longer fish, said Greg Sass, fisheries research team leader with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ Office of Applied Science. The sonar users searched more for fish before even fishing, while the other team spent more time actively fishing.
Sass said he is reluctant to apply the study to all fish species and water bodies, but the findings “would be counterintuitive to what I’m hearing in the bait shops or from other people that are on both sides of the fence with technology,” he said. More studies are ahead, including for the muskie, a prized predator fish.
Eric Sanft, a fisheries specialist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said an analysis of lakes across the state didn’t find “negative impacts” from the use of forward-facing sonar in fishing.
Surveys by wildlife officers in Minnesota found people using forward-facing sonar ended up catching similar numbers and variety of fish as anglers who cast their lines the old-fashioned way.
“To some degree, it can get scapegoated a little bit, and people’s perceptions of what other people are doing is often different than what the reality is,” said Marc Bacigalupi, a regional fisheries supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
The department has proposed reducing the daily walleye limit from six fish to four, partially because of advancements in fish-finding technology, among other factors such as a boom in ice fishing, attention on hot spots from social media and lower limits in surrounding states.
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