I’m not one of the guys who refuse to use forward-facing sonar. I have to master it to be competitive. I’m not good with this technology yet, but I’m beginning to get a handle on it.
Forward-facing sonar excels for catching suspended bass in deep water. I’m learning that it’s also effective in shallow water. In a lot of the lakes and rivers I fish in New Jersey, 8 to 10 feet is deep water.
Right now in December, the water temperatures close to home are hovering in the low 40s. As the bass always do in late fall and early winter, they’re getting lethargic and hanging closer to the bottom.
I believe the same thing happens in the South at this time of year when the water temperature drops into the 50s. The bass slow down, but they still have to feed.
With the help of forward-facing sonar, I’m finding bass near home on breaklines that drop from 2 to 3 feet into 6 to 10 feet of water. Any breakline that has some type of hard cover is likely to hold bass in cold water. That cover could be a little rockpile, a stump or a piece of brush.
The bass I’ve been seeing with my Lowrance graph are about 2 feet above the bottom or whatever cover happens to be just off the breakline.
I started out casting a jighead/minnow combination to them. That has proven to be a deadly forward-facing sonar bait. Some of the bass would follow it and then turn away.
After several bass had snubbed my jig, I saw a fish on my graph relating to some rocks in 4 to 5 feet of water. I reached down and snatched a rod rigged with a Berkley Frittside. I had been using it to crank rocky banks.
I cast the crankbait to the bass, and the fish grabbed it immediately. I have continued casting the Frittside to bass I’m seeing with forward-facing sonar, and I’ve had good days doing that.
The water is cold, but the crankbait still triggers a reaction bite. I want to stress that I’m retrieving the crankbait slowly and methodically. Even at a slow pace, a crankbait makes a lethargic bass react.
The Frittside is a great bait at this time of year because it has a tight wobble. It’s been common knowledge since I was a kid that tight wobbling crankbaits are more effective in cold water.
The Frittside runs 2 to 5 feet deep. When I see bass deeper than that, I switch to Berkley’s Dime 10 crankbait, which gets down 6 to 10 feet. Its wobble isn’t as tight as the Frittside’s, but it’s tight enough.
I’ve been having good luck with shad, chartreuse and crawfish-colored baits. I throw them on fluorocarbon line because it lets the lures get down quicker, and they work with a tighter wobble.
I changed the settings on my Lowrance HDS Live forward-facing sonar for this shallow application. In open, deeper water, I generally set the distance at 100 to 120 feet. In shallow water, I get a clearer image with the distance set at 80 feet.
Whatever the depth happens to be wherever I’m fishing, I set the depth on HDS Live 5 feet deeper than the bottom. On the lakes and rivers I’ve been fishing lately, 15 feet has been working well.
I never expected that fishing crankbaits with forward-facing sonar would be working right now. I’m anxious to see if this combination produces next spring and summer when I’m casting to suspended bass in deeper, open water.
You can learn more about how I fish crankbaits with forward-facing sonar and other bass tactics at www.mikeiaconelli.com or www.youtube.com/c/goingike.
