It's 2026...Is Forward Facing Sonar Going Away? (New Updates & Takes)

We’ve been grinding on the road, and in this episode, my co-host and I catch up on a crazy few weeks of traveling the country for tournament bass fishing! Once we get you caught up on our travels, we dive into the biggest elephant in the room: the ongoing forward-facing sonar (FFS) controversy.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Alright, welcome everyone to Sears Angler Podcast, where as always our main course for you will be talking and hopefully teaching you more about bass fishing. And after a couple weeks of kind of a not really a hiatus, we we had some shows here and there, some reruns, but we had a couple weeks of just crazy travel, crazy plans. We're back with another episode. We got the uh the best mustache of Idaho currently on the road right now, reporting live from the truck and uh Mr. Adam Deakin. And as always, I'm your host, Bailey Ibread, and uh Deke. We were like kind of took a breath of fresh air, you know, that I'm back from travels, but it seems like now you're on travels. So it's just it's it's June, baby, that's all it is.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

We can't get, we cannot get a line, man. I I swear, like, yeah, it's just it was like, man, Bailey is straight up three weeks in a row, four derbs just ripping all over the country. Um, I had a little bit of a break, but then have been caught up travel and work uh and fishing right now. I've got the boat in tow headed to uh Tri-Cities to drop it off there, continue on, uh, and then come back and pre-practice for the Super 60 on the Columbia River in about a month and a half's time. But this is my only chance that I'm gonna get to pre-practice. I've never been on that pool, so I'm gonna try and hop on for a day or two and then run back to Idaho, where guys are coming down to uh fish Brownleague next week, first or second Super 60 of the year. Feels like it's been a minute since I fished uh a big tournament, so we'll we'll see how that all goes.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is it has been madness, will continue to be madness, and this is what we call the peak bassin' season, where everyone in the whole entire country, tournaments or not, uh regardless of species or not, everybody's fishing. Everybody's out on the water, every lake is freaking crazy. I can attest to that, especially this past weekend, really just the past few weeks. Santee was crazy, Clear Lake was crazy. I was at a Cayuga this past weekend, and the boating, just the the general boating pressure, not even fishing pressure, was just bananas. Um I tried to go fish one stretch of bank and there was five bass boats and then like seven kayaks on it, so I had to just pull a UI. Uh, so it was like it's peak season right now. And um we definitely have some some ways around that for future years, but uh apologies to everybody for the uh the lapse of episodes the past couple weeks, but we are back. Uh I'm currently back home for at least another month before I have another trip. Uh so you guys at least have stable shows for four weeks at least. Uh, but we shouldn't have an issue as the trip next month is for iCast, and I got just two derbs left for this summer anyway. Um, so uh for the folks that are tuning in, we obviously you can see by the title, we're gonna be talking a little bit. Not your not your typical conversation around forward facing, but we think that you know it's been several years now that it's been hot in conversation. We've had new things transpire, new conversations, new updates, new opinions, new perceptions, and we figured we would get back on here, kind of talk about all those from an objective mindset, uh, for it, against it, impacts beyond just fishing. And so uh we'll be talking about that here in a second. But um Deacon and I would be remiss if we didn't do a little catch up here because life's been pretty crazy for both of us. Uh, we got some industry updates and other things to update you guys on. Um, but uh, dude, first things first, I want I just want to give some shout-outs quick. Uh, our boy Louie just had another baby. Uh crazy. I know. Uh had another baby yesterday. Uh, so congrats to him and the Delgado fam. Uh, looking forward to going down and meeting the his new daughter, uh, Adelina. And so uh obviously Louie is the host of our kayak fishing podcast, Kay Fishing Weekly. So we've got to give him a shout. And then um shout out to Logan Parks, who found out he was gonna be a dad during the turb.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

That was crazy.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Pretty pretty dang wild. He shared that reel. And uh cool to see those moments. There's one thing, dude, where you guys can hate so much on social media, and I it definitely has its its negatives, but uh seeing really cool, heartfelt moments like that are are pretty special, uh, and something that they're gonna be able to cherish for a long time. And uh shout out to uh some new baby luck for both them boys. Um yeah, pretty dang cool. But um, dude, I want obviously we have a seriously western segment. We we were trying to get a show while staying at Chad's house. Um, unfortunately, that didn't happen because it's completely my fault of practicing every day all day. But uh dude, Clear Lake was wild. Clear Lake was definitely wild.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Um Yeah, give us give us a give us a little rundown on your your first time experience of uh the fabled fishery of Clear Lake.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

I will start it off by it was really funny actually. Um the amount of DMs I got of people like that's the lake's not clear, like just people like yeah, just no shit. Uh but like uh that that was that was pretty humorous, but the the lake was not as pressured as I anticipated it to be. Like I didn't see as many boats as I anticipated. Umps weren't as packed as I had anticipated. Um obviously it's probably because it's you know middle of the week and the weather was pretty rowdy wind-wise, so probably kept some people off the fishery. But um definitely was pretty hard to catch a bass, I'll say that. So you could tell it definitely is it was pressured, it was probably just a low number of votes that week, but um it was it was pretty difficult to catch a bass. I heard from a lot of people that that week I was there um that it was like the lake isn't fishing good, everything's really tough, it's it's not normally like this, and I'm like, go figure. I hear that every lake that I go to across the country. Um, but ended up finding something pretty cool, didn't have scope out there or anything like that, um, which would be perfect for this conversation. Yeah but um flew across there, shout out to John Mahoney, Dave Urke, they're the guys that hooked me up with all the gear and kayak and everything I needed to get on the water every day. Um bro, I literally found it was just like stars align, just kind of funny that it worked out this way. But Chad has a little boat ramp at his house that I launch from. Obviously, like if you got a boat ramp at your Airbnb, you're gonna launch the boat ramp. I mean it's just you don't have to drive to the boat ramp that morning. So yeah, it makes things a hell of a lot easier. So I launched from there and just started fishing from his house and um ended up running into a couple fish, and they were like it was like consistent bites, and I couldn't find consistent bites anywhere else. So I'm like, well, there's a boat ramp five minutes from his house, so uh we're gonna go there and start there, and it just happened to be protected from the crazy wind we had day one, and uh fished a hundred-yard stretch all of day one and day two, and landed up in eighth place, so it kind of worked out perfect pretty well, yeah. But uh the winner, Matthew Brandon, freaking smashed him. He had like 36 pounds on day two doing the old Koik ball scoping deal. Uh shout out to him for that. Yeah, which also won Santee Cooper the week I was there, the week prior to clear lake. Koik ball and the scope won down at Santee. Um, which I was doing that too, and it was actually a hell of a lot of fun. Uh caught some freaking freaking big ones. Um, but the Koik Ball Scope did not win KUGA weekend. That was spawning smallmouth.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

But the Koik Ball did win with with our boy Jason Christie. Uh, I don't know if he was entirely scope balling, even though he could in that event. He seemed to be fishing a little more blind, but he was definitely quick balling on uh the Pasca tank.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Yeah, if you go to Bassmaster website right now, it's Chrissy smiling with three rods, all quick balls, and I'm pretty sure he just Chris Johnson'd him on the the Pasca Tank to uh to win that event, which freaking smashed him. But it was also sick, like Hunter Shack caught a dirty 30 on a glide. That was freaking sick.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

That was, dude, that catch uh is in my brain, like locked in my brain. Um I watched that live and I did not get to watch much of the event. I did watch that catch. Yeah, and it was really cool to see uh that's why we fish, that's like the the pursuit, right? It's always the fun and the pursuit in my mind of trying to get that win, trying to chase that down, why we why we do it, and that was so cool. It was also cool to see Patrick Walters was on the live and this was on the live next show or whatever, uh immediately was buying those Berkeley shop glide baits on live. He got $500 worth, and he literally is sitting there going, you guys think that's six inch or eight inch? Like, I mean, literally just shows you. Everyone's like, oh, tournaments, whatever else. Like, dude, when something like that happens, everyone goes to it and buys right away, right? I mean, even the pros of the top of the top see something like that and they're like, get me up now. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Yeah, it definitely happens. That's what dang sure tackle gets sold. Um, dude, I uh shout out to Hunter though, like between Lake Murray, um, the classic at Ray Roberts, seeing him at Pasca Tank. I love watching Hunter on live, especially when he's smashing him, because like that dude, the emotions that he wears it on his sleeve, man. It just gets dude, it's it's fun to watch, man, and it gets you going. You can just you can see how much it means to him, and uh just him screaming, I want a blue trunk. It's like I can't tell you. I I feel so bad for Hunter because there's been like four or five times now he's finished in the top three and like freaking smashed him on the last day and just come up short. Uh his time's coming though, but how close was it in this one? I want to say it was just a couple pounds. Me pull it up and I'll give you another one.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

The problem was that Christie went back to back on sevens, and that's when it was like, oh no, I don't think so. Even though he smashed him like that sucks. I agree, he needs to get that W because he's been so close. It's just such a good dude, man.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Great guy. We love Hunter over here on the pod. Um trying to find the dang results. Where the heck? Schedule. How do I find the former events? All that shows me it's upcoming. Am I getting old? Is this the stage in my life where I'm just like getting old where I can't navigate a website? We're unk. Unk, baby what is the day for getting everything? There we go. View results. We found it. Alright. We became our age again. Uh he oh, he lost by five and three-quarter pounds.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

But speaking of that too, like Fisher Anaya only had like, what, seven or nine pounds on day one and was five pounds away. I mean, he was smoking them. Schmoking him. Um yeah, awesome, awesome derb weekend. Uh, crazy couple weeks of derbin. Um, and obviously we're, you know, in the the time of year we are now, we're gonna start seeing a bunch of, I've already seen a happening of people. I dude, I feel like the window of iCast releases just gets larger and larger every year. Like, we're gonna start seeing iCast releases posted in January at some point.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

All the companies are like, all right, if you're gonna go a week earlier, I'm gonna go a month earlier. I'm putting my crap out.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

It's crazy. We're gonna put out iCast 2027 here at iCast 2026. That's what it's gonna end up being. Uh, but you're gonna start seeing a lot of that. We will be at iCast, uh, so you'll see some content. Not the mass you know, content you see everywhere else, but we'll put out some things that are noteworthy and things that are cool that we see and share, especially in our business from the bass boat segments that we have where we do some industry buzz. But um, we'll have some more of that for you guys on the next episode. What are you looking at over there, bro?

SPEAKER_01 13:05

I'm not even gonna tell you. I'm pretty sure there's just a bull. I'm driving in the middle of uh middle of Oregon. Uh pretty sure there's just a bull mounting a cow on the side of the road. And there was just a calf next to the cow that was just like, yo, mom, what the heck is going on right now? Jeez. Dude, I missed this segment with Deacon on the road getting pulled over and otherwise. But we got Starlink in the pickup now. First of all, this thing is incredible. Say whatever you want about Elon and all this crazy stuff going on with SpaceX IPO. Starlink is unreal. Uh yeah, anyways. That's uh that's all. So we're gonna see maybe more of this road content. It's gonna be terrible. But go on, sorry. That's what I was literally looking at, just an FYI.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

I was like, it's gonna be three things. It could be someone else's towing a bass boat, it could be a pretty lady, or something wild has happened on the side of the road right now. Crazy. But uh, Dig, is there any any buzz you know off top of your head? I know obviously you're on the road, so we'll have a more formal business for the bass boat seg for the for the next pod, but uh anything that comes to mind?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

You know, not from a direct industry standpoint. Um I would say the biggest thing is kind of buzz around everything that's going on in the tackle industry. Uh, I just keep seeing more and more about the the koiky style, all the all the koiky style imitators, um forward-facing, etc. So I think it'll be good to just kind of get into what we're seeing, but nothing to point to directly other than classic normal tournaments going on.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

Yeah, I've been starting to see some rumblings of potentially what's next, uh, which sounds like more fuzzy style stuff, just potentially different shapes, things like that. Um, which we will be putting out here on the lure lab here soon, some content around that, not just koick stuff, but fuzzy stuff in general and uh a bunch of things there in between. But um, you know, cool to see the glide bait play at the Pasca Tank. Um there there's still hope for people. I'll say that. While I was at Clear Lake and while the fuzz was definitely uh the leading charge of that derb, caught all my fish on a chatterbait and a DT. Which no complaints there.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

That's the thing here, yeah. That's my take on some of this stuff. Like you can still catch them on the old, the old spinner bug and whatever else from the bassin world. They all still catch fish, believe me.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Oh yeah. Well, that's the thing too. I don't understand the hate against the koiki. There was a couple guys I ran into that more jokingly, but like, like, ah, screw that damn bait. I think there's a negative kind of uh connotation sometimes to that bait due to scope, but there's been so many people catching that, catching giants without scope on the Koiky, myself included. And yeah, yeah, you know, I think it's just dude, genuinely, I think the Koiky is replacing the wacky rig. And we're gonna take a quick break to tell you guys about our friends over at Humminbird and Mancota, and especially about the Minkoda Ultrex. Minkoda Ultrex is built to provide you unmatched control of your bass boat and lock down your spot once you find some fish. They are built for bass fishing with unmatched control and effortless steering from an ultra-responsive foot pedal. Turning any spot into a stronghold, it's the industry's gold standard of GPS anchoring. There's a reason so many anglers and professional anglers alike trust the Altrex for its durability, reliability, so that there is no questions it's going to perform when conditions are at their worst. And now, back into the show.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Okay, here's my question to you. I think this is worth literally an entire show in itself, but would love to hear where does this stand in baits that come out that have been truly uh changing to the bass fishing landscape? Number one, where does Koiky sit for you on that list? And number two, how long does it last?

SPEAKER_02 17:25

I think it sits number two for the only reason that it hasn't been banned yet.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Okay, wait, what's number one?

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Alabama rig.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Really? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Only because it got banned so fast, but I think that is a technicality where I would love to put Koiky as one because I feel like above all else, like the craze for people to go buy these, the the how much money people are spending on these baits, more than MSRP to get their hands on one, is unlike anything I've ever seen. Um, you know, the Sakamata shed kind of trickled into that, but I don't definitely not to this scale. Um, you know, not when you're seeing someone drop almost three grand for 10 of them, which that is just blows my mind. Um, but and then seeing how many people are trying to make their version, make it ASAP. Um whereas like the A-Rig, I think obviously A-Rig people are smashing giants with it. People still catch it to today. I don't know if the Koiky will have the the lasting power, if you will, that the A-Rig still does. The A-Rig still catches them everywhere, all times of year. I think the Koiky is still going to always catch them, but I see it as similar to the wacky rig where it will still be situational and a kind of a bite getter, but I don't know if it's gonna have that. Because a lot of people understand right now, it's like when you find something that works and works really well, it's like almost automatic when a fish sees it. When you can get a giant fish on a pressured fishery to act like it's never seen a bait before, you know that there's something special. Uh, I think that is I don't know how how long that is going to last for. But I still think the Koiki is going to be a player for years to come. I just don't know if it's gonna have as big of an emphasis as it does right this moment, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Okay, here's here's my take. I I like that take. I like the I like your thought process in comparing it to the A-rig. I think where my mind goes, I want to compare it when I think of truly industry-changing baits, okay? And some of this comes before our time, which is cool to like think back in history here. I can't imagine what the first spinner bait was like getting back to work. Okay, I can't imagine what that was like. Um, because that dominated it, right? Like the old tournament scenes, all it is is guys blind in a spinnerbait. Um but let's go to like a little more modern, let's say the Sango coming out with a stick or a bait. I hear stories from old guys, man. The first time that that came out, like guy fishing, and he realized just throwing it out and watching the power of fish eat it in clear water. He was like, it was the craziest thing I've ever seen. I bought some of these things, I never thought I'd use them. Some magazine article told me to buy them, and next thing I know I'm digging into the bottom of the boat, and you know, the fish shakes one off, I'm jumping in the water to go get them. I mean, it's literally like the stuff we hear about with the koiki, right? So, like, I think the Sangos one, I think of like the drop shot as a technique, then my head straight goes to meadow, A-rig, Quakey, right? I think we're talking about like the breakdown of these. I think the A-rig is still situational. I agree you can catch a fish on a year route, no doubt to me, and it catches giants. Big ones eat the A-rig the same way big ones eat a glide bait or a quakey. However, I would argue that the uh I'm passing a cop right now. Don't pull me over, don't pull me over, don't pull me over. Uh, I would argue. Is he pulling out? No, he's good. He's good.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Alright, well I'm gonna interrupt this real fast because uh this is just spur of the moment, but I just got a notification on my phone that there's an animal detected in front yard. And there's a deer walking down my driveway right now. In Buffalo, New York? Buffalo, New York.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

What is going on? I don't know. Dude, we've had a weird this is Wildlife Wednesday. I mean, the show it's Tuesday, but the show's gonna have on Wednesday. It's Wildlife Wednesday. We're seeing cows. Deer. It's crazy. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Sorry, continue. Back to Quickie.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Anyways, anyways, my point is this. Like, I think the I have never seen an industry response like we have with the Quickie. Ever. And you talk to main players in this industry, tackle sales guys, etc. There has never been something this crazy. And that's coming off of glide baits, minnows, etc. Right? Like there's just nothing we've seen like this. I don't think it's gonna last as long as your main stays. Like, think about all the baits that do the best, which the koike can do, which is like kind of does nothing. So I think it's an in-between here. I don't think it's a Sanko. I don't think it's a minnow. Those are two baits that are just like ultra realistic, will be players all the time.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

Snight on everywhere, every time of year.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Yes. I think the koike is close to that, but I think it is so different, particularly, I mean, on the fall, just throwing it like a wacky rig senko, that kind of gets me like a fish just scooping it. The way we're popping it and that sort of a thing right now, I think that fish are going to get used to that very quickly. Um, kind of the way an A-rig maybe happened. Like, to me, if you go to a body of water where they haven't seen the A-rig, or it was early in the A-rig heyday, like it was nuts. It is not, it's more specialty now. There's absolutely times when it is the only thing you should be throwing, and it's the best thing there is on the body of water. But there's a lot, a lot, a lot of followers now that just don't commit all the way. Um, and I personally think the Koiki is gonna have a shorter window than the Sanko and the Minnow. Like, I think the Minnow is just like, it's just too natural, too realistic. So overall, I think this is a player that's gonna be here for a while, but I think it's gonna lose its might relatively quickly just because so many fish are seeing it so quickly right now, especially on pressured bodies of water, that like fish adapt, mother nature protects itself. They're gonna be like, I'm running as fast as I can away from that thing when it hits the water, you know?

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we saw it with even with minnows right now. You're seeing that. Um, I don't think that's like you said, I totally agree. I think the minnow is gonna be here to stay for forever, just like the wacky rig is. Um, yeah, it would be very interesting to see with with the koikie. I mean, we've seen it already start happening with the koiki in some specific situations where they're not eating it totally. Well, you you could take that side, which I think personally there's certain fisheries where they're already seeing a koiki too much, that they're getting used to it. Um, but I think you could disagree with that. But if you are and you're going based off of VPT and elite guys, those are the best in the world with it. And I wouldn't take them as any sort of measurement. Um but I mean we still see baits play like look at the fluke on Murray. So it's a classic. That's not the freaking grub. Uh unbelievable. I did not have that on my bingo card for this year. Um, but uh yeah, no, it'll be interesting, dude. I mean, we'll have to do a like a yearly check-in of like, alright, how much will we see in the the Koik ball this year? Um we'll have to save this episode number, which is like 607, which is freaking nuts, by the way. That's awesome. Um I don't know what we'll do for episode thousand, but that's for another day. But dude, um, same line, obviously, koiky, big buzzword. A buzzword that's been a buzzword for the past couple years is forward facing. And we're seeing more conversations, heavier conversations with leagues. We're seeing changes every single year. Um, you know, we're seeing you know, more advancements, things on the horizon that are coming uh new for it. And thought it'd be good where to do a little check-in. Uh I see people have been doing shows on forward facing for so long. We've had some specialty shows on it. We've never really had a show where we you and I sit and uh uh objectively talk about the current state of it in a long time. And that's where I will I will lead this off because I know you're in agreement here, is what we're about to discuss with it is completely objective. I think Deacon and I both share the same opinion of we love to use it, we also love to not use it. And my thing is like if they get rid of it, I'm okay with it. If we keep it, I'm okay with it. I I I more put all my trust in the state biologists and the agencies to determine what is best for our fisheries. Um but we're gonna be talking about these again from an objective side, making sure we're putting ourselves in the shoes of both sides of the ball here. Um but I guess where to lead with it, Deke, is uh I guess we gotta give a shout out to I think MDJ first for that video because that was bravo. I mean, yeah, like you said, a true professional and how he spoke about things.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Yeah, man, here's the thing. Like, whatever your opinion is on forward facing, I I hate how controversial it has become. And I think this goes for what is wrong with uh people today, what social media has driven us to do. I think honestly a bigger conversation about what is wrong with our country is the fact that we dig in on an opinion and we don't aren't willing to change or adjust our views with more information. And in my opinion, I think that it shows an incredible level level of intelligence, maturity, character, when someone goes on the record and says, Hey, here was my viewpoint. My viewpoint has now changed, regardless of what it is, whatever topic we're talking about, in any aspect of life, in my opinion, like that is a remarkable person and people that I want to surround myself with because there's a lot of people that dig in and say, This is right and this is the way it is, and I'm gonna defend it at all costs, even though there's more information, new information, and stuff changes, right? And you can only do the best you can with the information you have at that time. And so, like, again, I you know, I probably differ in viewpoints from what MDJ said, but I absolutely think that that was an incredibly well done, articulated the way he talked about it, uh, and appreciate his take.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Yeah, and look, I'm never uh I second everything you just said, and I will never ever question or disagree or challenge anyone that has the best interest in the fish, in the fisheries, and the sport of fishing in their best interest, which is what he did. Um, you know, one of the biggest points that I took away from that was one that was, and look, I I love forward facing love using it. Um, but the fisheries and the fish are always going to be my number one priority of I will always agree and and back anything that's for the best of our fisheries, but uh was is using this making these fisheries too pressured to the point where the fishing becomes harder for the everyday angler. And that was one thing that I had thought about that would be interesting, and this was just a a theory that I had had that I hope never comes true, and that is if we are able to tap into bites that we've never been able to access before, which I I still think is awesome. I think we love learning that, understanding that as anglers, and let's be real, anyone that has gotten on a minnow byte, a koiki bite with scope, things like that, you're like a little kid watching them eat it. But it's amazing. But if more of those untapped fish become tapped into, become pressured, and you have places like you know, the Hartwells, the Gunnersvilles that just get so much pressure. Now Gunnersville's a special case, that place is incredible. But the they get so pressured where it's we're going down the rabbit hole, these crazy baits, crazy techniques, crazy strategies to get bites. When you have a guy that wants to go out once or twice a month and wants to throw a jig at the bank, and things become more difficult for that person to catch a fish, and they're not they're having zero days, you know, or zero fish days. I worry that sometimes that person might not buy a license the next year. Not saying that that's the case, but you might be discouraging the biggest group of anglers that is non-tournament fishermen, and people that aren't out every single day. Not uh the avids and the tournament anglers, I feel like 99% of them are gonna fish regardless. They're always gonna buy a license, maybe uh but and be out on the water. It's the biggest population of the people that go out on the weekends that I worry about. And I think that was what MDJ was trying to get at was for our fisheries. Um so I I share in that, and I don't hope we don't get to that point, which is where I again go back to I rely my trust in our fisheries biologist to make that decision. I have no credentials to make that decision, but I that's where I see the point where MDJ was coming from. And again, I like you said, I don't agree on all of his points, but respect the hell out of him for taking that taking that platform and speaking his mind on that.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Yeah. I mean, I I probably where I go a little bit in disagreement to you there. I I I like the thought process in trusting biologists' decisions. They're qualified, they are able to run studies on these bodies of water. However, and this goes into a bigger picture, particularly as I think about hunting in the West and what is occurring in states like Oregon and in Colorado right now. My issue in trusting the entire opinion of our agencies, state agencies, is that number one, it's not always the biologists who are able to actually make the decision.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Like what we are seeing is how politicized the outdoors is becoming. That occurred, right? Because of votes and because of the political side of that. And so, like, I I struggle with the whole just leave it to the hand of biologists, because not that the biologists are right and can't make that decision, so they don't have the power to make that decision necessarily. Maybe more of a political movement, anyways. Um but I think your your overall point is valid in in like let's ask these questions. I think I think from an overall standpoint, part of me says, look, these fisheries that are known as being hard fisheries that have really big fish that get pressured a lot. I hate to say it. I think I don't hate to say it, I think that they have always been difficult to some degree with and without scope because of the amount of pressure that they have. I do think the fish are now targeted more times of the year. I think that that is valid. Um, but like, dude, I don't know. I hated traveling back east coming from the west because like you go to fork even before forward facing, and it was hard. It was it was so hard. There's so many big fish in there, and it was brutal.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Uh you know, Clear Lake, you could just experienced it. Dude, Clear Lake, I promise you, Bailey, was just as hard before forward facing. Like it was. Like it just was like you'd go there and you could catch a 10, but it's like, I might catch seven fish today if it's not during the spawn. Like, yeah, like it it was it was hard previous to this. Um and so like then you get into like health of the fishery, catch rates, etc. Our biologist system is set up primarily based on catch and take out of fisheries, five fish limit per day. That's why we have that in tournaments, because you and I, and anyone else that buys a fishing license, can take five bass per day out of the fishery. That rarely occurs for tournament guys. I would venture to say that rarely occurs for most recreational fishermen. There's certainly people who take bass, and I encourage that. Small, especially smaller fish in fisheries. But my point is the biologists need to make the decision based on you know the health of the fisheries. However, we're not taking these fish out in general. So it's it's kind of a I kind of go all over the board with this. There's so many positives and negatives to it, and I think it's like a healthy discussion that needs to be talked about more.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

You need gear that works as hard as you do. That's why Amped Outdoors is the official power solution of a Sirius Angler podcast. From unmatched battery nerd customer service to performance that thrives in extreme winter cold or summer heat keeps you on the water longer. Click the link in the show notes to get you powered up with Amped Outdoors. Now back to the show. Yeah. Yeah, and again, this is why you and I were having an opinion show, not a uh a factual show, because we'd have Bardin or somebody on if we wanted that to be the case. Um but going back quick, totally agree. I think my only my point of relying on biologists is only correct if, again, politics, which is uh the uh yeah, that's the one thing that throws all that for a loop. Um, but which is unfortunately the net the uh the evil part of our current state that we uh sit in, which is really sucks. Uh shout out to people in Oregon. Hopefully that all goes well. Um but uh yeah, dude, I it's it's an interesting state with more trails talking about it too right now, of if they're gonna allow it or not. You know, and I think I don't know what the right answer is. And because I I don't know what the numbers look like, and at the end of the day, too, and I don't mean this with any disrespect, but like I also don't trust any of the numbers people put out either. I really don't.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Um you're saying like view viewership numbers or numbers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you can you can inflate or deflate those, I feel like, however people, yeah, that's tough.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

Yeah, and even like if if you say that's Nielsen ratings, well, Nielsen ratings have been sued twice for inaccuracy. So it's it's like you it's so hard to to uh to rely on that. So it's like what do the fans actually want? Where it's I think it's hard, especially coming from us, where it's like we love to go watch Trey McKinney catch them scoping on Murray, but then we also love to go freaking, you know, we love to watch Chris Johnson catch some goiking docks with no scope. You know, it doesn't matter because I think you and I are in that bucket of people that like to watch all fishing. Um, so it's hard to understand what the majority of people want to see. So it's a hard place, I think, being these trails. Um it's a hard place being in ownership and leadership of these professional trails to see what the people want as a business. And it's an even harder place to be in as an angler to have your rules changing every single year, changing your game every single year. Uh which yeah, it's just in a constant state of change, is what it's at. But yeah, while it sounds like a lot too, I want to stress this is that at the end of the day, fishing's still a hell of a lot of fun, whether you got it or not.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

100% man, and I I think that's that's huge. Like one thing that I will say was super interesting to see, uh man, like we're seeing, I think, two two things here. Right now, you're seeing, especially like the BBT, I think of Zach Burge, I think of Takahiro Mori absolutely banging him on a chatterbait, like everywhere. I do think, I do truly think that like we have more guys than ever out and chasing floaters and etc. And some of those fish on the bank are actually easier to catch right now. Like I truly believe that in a decent amount of uh situations and use cases, and I think that that is like hard to prove, and I think even that's hard to prove from a biologist's standpoint on a fishery. Like, okay, if that fish, you know, because I think I think it's clear the same way that fish have personalities as humans, like we have residential fish that never leave the bank. You have fish that migrate out into the depths and then come back to the bank. Like, I do think that population that's getting targeted all the time is probably starting to get more pressured and harder, but at the same time, a lot less dudes going down the bank winding uh as they're as there used to be. Um, you know, think about like a Gunner'sville pre-forward facing or whatever body of water, I mean that then that subsection was even hit harder. So, like, that's a kind of a tough one in my mind. But I I understand the thought process too of like, if a fish never catches a break, you know, it's winter, it gets hit with a minnow, then it comes to the bank and we bang them during the spawn, and then they go back out and they're on a ledge and they get hit again. It's like, you know, they're getting targeted all the time. I will say I do think we've got thousands and thousands of fish in these fisheries, but I mean, we also have more anglers, it seems like, than ever, especially on these pressured bodies of water.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

Yeah, I'll I'll go back to the the same stance of I'm really glad I'm not in charge of making these decisions. Um because again, dude, it comes to the point where it's like I'm not saying this, but we go back to that line that we hear so often in this industry is growing the sport. And where do we draw that line? Because at the end of the day, we have a ceiling. Like we can't just go build a new basketball court or build a new football field to make room for more people that want to participate, you know what I mean? Where it's I'm not saying that we need to stop anything, but it's like there's a maximum capacity when it comes to fishing.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I think that there's always gonna be the idea of going to, you know, there's probably a lot of lakes near Gunner'sville that are awesome that are not Gunnersville, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

Like, you know, your your fun fishermen go to. Because, but it's a resource. It's a resource like anything else. And I just I think of the same debate in hunting right now. I mean, you're seeing technology restrictions, certainly here in Idaho, as it relates to drones, as it relates to infrared, as it relates to all this stuff, because you know, these critters, uh where is fair chase come into effect? Like, it's just such a hard topic. Because, you know, I also see the side of like taking an old guy. I took an old guy out fishing who was exceptionally excited to learn about forward-facing sonar, does not fish tournaments, is a crappie fisherman, true and true. And I took him out and showed him what he was doing, and he caught more fish, way more fish doing that than without it, right? And that was like we want to catch more fish and inspire people to catch more fish. That did that in that instance. Yeah, but we don't want to do that too much because then we lose all, you know. So it's like, where does this stand? Uh and again, I think it's on agencies with fish uh creole limits and how many you can take and that sort of a thing. But yeah, man, it's a very interesting thing because like I take it away, I think you also take a subsection that's interested in it and getting more inspired to go fishing because they can catch more fish with it, than also the other side of like. Does a person who doesn't have that technology or the ability to get that technology, are they catching less fish? And that's where I think fundamentally I don't necessarily know if I agree with because if I think that those fish are are different, particularly to some degree on the bank sometimes than the ones that are out when it comes to bass specifically.

SPEAKER_02 44:21

Yeah, and that's where this topic, there is no fine line. There is no like a perfect black line of you cross this, you cross that, you know, especially when we're talking about the hunting side, there is no like very clear perceived right and wrong. And then the issue becomes even harder to determine per region where some regions this is an issue, some reasons it's not an issue, some species it's not an issue. Walleye, go to the walleye world and find me one person that hates forever facing. I you will be hard pressed because every walleye person I've talked to loves the hell out of fore facing so far. And the walleye populations around here have been flourishing. So it's like it's it's a species by species issue, it's a region by region, even fisheries by fisheries issue where there's a lot of fisheries where you can't even use the dang thing. Uh at least not to the capacity that you can do on other fisheries like Great Lakes, Gunnersville, Texas, etc. So it's like it almost feels to me, dude, if they were to eventually make a decision or a restriction on it, it would be very selective, if that makes sense. Where it's like these certain lakes are restricted by a certain horsepower. It might be these certain lakes you can't have forward facing. I don't know. I don't know what it'd be.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

Yeah. Well, I mean, think about that, go back in time. You know, uh fisheries that are, especially at West here, barbless hook, um, you know, there's especially trout fisheries, there'll be barbless hook or fly and lure only, right? No live bait. Like there's there's there's restrictions already in place on certain things, you know, from a from a restrictive standpoint. I that's an interesting topic, man. I've never heard that brought up. Like, what if you restrict it per area? Now I think that there's like the aspect of slippery slope like everything else. Yeah. With with that, once you start restricting this, can you know? But yeah, it's it's interesting because like I think of perch crappie, like your your panfish species have got to be the most targeted with for like the easiest to target with fork features.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

Some more than a box of rocks, dude.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Right. You look out and there's a cloud of 40 and you're like, watch this, right? Like you know.

SPEAKER_02 46:49

You want dinner?

SPEAKER_01 46:51

Right, right. But however, I don't know, those fisheries don't seem to be, and I don't know. I'm not a you know, crappie connoisseur, but like the fisheries that I go to, there's a lot of you know small aluminum boats where they've got their forward-facing sonar rig set up and they're catching the crap out of them. But those fisheries, so far, I have not seen an effect, especially with panfish, to me, uh, as far as how many are in there and how big they are. And so like I think it comes back to, like you said, specific instances, specific species. Yeah, you know, and again overall.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

Yeah, and that goes back again to to state agencies, because we've had Shane from Missouri's fishing game on, and they talk about how they implemented a slot limit which has been so far protecting the crappie species, uh, where they're still having a lot of mature crappie because of that slot limit. Um yeah, it's and you can always bring up the conversation too, where there's two counties here in New York where smallmouth and like or just bass fishing in general are completely out of season. You can't even target them. Although there's people from out of state that come up here and do it, even though the our DEC doesn't stop them. Shame on you. I know who you are. Uh, but like where you're not supposed to be fishing for them. Where I'm not saying I want this, because I want to be, you know, like I want to be able to fish 365 days of the year. But like hunting, we can only hunt a certain time of year. In those counties, there's only a certain time of year you're allowed to fish. Do we eventually see something like that in certain areas that are just getting absolutely pounded? Because that's why a lot of people love coming to the north because fish get a break for a couple months out of the year. Alright, we see that universal at some point. I'm not saying I want that. I don't want that. I'm just for conversation's sake.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

Well, and and it's man, it's just it's such a cool what I love about our platform, we're able to just kind of talk through this stuff at a high level. It's like being at a campfire with your buddies, right? And it's like, you know, I I think about it in so so many I go so many different angles with this because you're right. I mean, like, there's there's the aspects of also you go into like the spawn dynamics, right? Like something that's super unique and it's regional. Like the West in general, Western fisheries biology is set up for the most part for cold water species, trout, etc. They just don't really care as much about mass uh and warm water species. So there's like a whole other debate of like even that. But my point is this there's a lot of rivers that are, you know, you're not able to fish reds or during while fish are spawning. Like you're just not able to fish the fishery when trout are sitting there and most vulnerable because they're they're having babies. And we, as in bass fishing, it's you know, I love sight fishing. I the the mind game of chasing a more fish on the bed, I love that, right? But like that's a whole nother, like, well, why do we allow this, right? Some of the regulations up in the north are protect to protect the spawn and and and those types of things. So it's a it's a really hard uh debate overall, and it's it's unfolding, I think, right now, and it's it's on the mind of a of a lot of people. And uh I don't know, I don't know what the right answer is because I also see it live in front of me how fish are starting to starting to certainly understand what's going on too.

unknown 50:38

Right?

SPEAKER_01 50:38

There's no doubt in my mind. You go to um, I mean, certainly any herring fishery, but like even fisheries up here, you fire that mitdow over their head and that splash is too loud, like they already get it. You know, like Mother Nature, I still will stand on the fact that Mother Nature protects itself. Right? Like it just does. Like it's it starts to there's a reason that that bull elk goes way back in an absolute hellhole that is so hard to get to from any road nearby, right? Like bat bass and any anything else, they start to get wise to it. Now, technology advances a lot faster than mother nature, in my opinion. And so, like, there comes that level of like this is exponentially getting going to get crazier with all aspects. So, like, where does that level lie? And I don't know the answer, and I don't think anyone does, but I think it's healthy to talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 51:34

Yeah, and I think that answer only needs to be decided upon concrete like data that it can't be short-term data. Like, we need like the when this conversation first started kicking off, where no biologists really hadn't even studied it yet. People were calling for all these legal actions. It's like, let's let's give this a before we you know, humans, we are so impulsive, where it's like, let's myself included, which is weird that I came to this conclusion very fast. Of like, let's give this time, like let's not jump to conclusions here. Um, but yeah, no, it's it's gonna be interesting to see, like, dude, in 2030, will we even have it? What will it look like? Or will we have something even crazier? You know, it's it's are we gonna have goggles that have forward facing away? It's like I don't know. But um, which speaking of goggles, by the way, uh, I totally bought a cheap pair of goggles to go swim with fish this summer. So I'm I'm actually really excited about that.

SPEAKER_01 52:39

Bailey's using the original forward-facing sonar. He's going diving.

SPEAKER_02 52:43

I'm gonna go rob Matsuri out of the kayak, bro. I'm gonna go swim with him with a camera.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

I can't wait for this content. You just need to have a uh a selfie stick of you swimming underwater with bass. I can't wait to see this.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I want to bring one of my buddies with me so that he can scope me while I'm underwater. I'm gonna see if I can hear the ping.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

I can feel it!

SPEAKER_02 53:04

You don't want to have a girl third eye because I'm using scope.

SPEAKER_01 53:08

I can feel it in my lateral line. There's a there's a ping.

SPEAKER_02 53:14

Oh, I don't know if people are ready for that content. Uh yeah, either way, um any other things that we thought of that we didn't talk about on this one? Because I feel like we kind of broke it down, but also didn't really totally break it down.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

No, we didn't it was a very classic show of us just going in circles. Uh I mean, no, man. I I think I think the overall message that that I would like is for just people to uh A, don't make it as divisive, right? It to me everything is so what benefits be. What benefits uh my my belief structure or whatever it whatever it may be, and I just think that like it's okay to have open conversations about this stuff and to like think through it, and it's it's not that serious. We're talking about forward facing sonar in a world that has way bigger issues than forward facing sonar.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

Um it's okay to disagree. You don't need to hate somebody because you disagree on something. Like if that were the case, then we'd have no friends. Like 100%. You're not gonna agree with somebody on everything.

SPEAKER_01 54:28

No, not at all. That's what makes us human. And so it's like, it's like, yeah, man, I guess, I guess uh overall, this wasn't like necessarily to show our opinions, you know. I think we certainly talked through of like points on on both sides, but it's like I don't know, it's a it's an interesting thing to talk through to see uh see where it all all goes because and I think that I think that there's just a lot of talk on it right now, but there's not there's not enough openness between sides. It's like you either hate it or you love it. Why can't it be like I like it and I don't like it sometimes? I don't know. Like there's more middle ground, I think, out there than people think.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

And don't make somebody make you feel like you need to take a stance on it one side or another. Like you have to pick sides, like your two friends break up and you have to pick a side now. Yeah, you don't have to to do that. You just like Deacon said, you can enjoy to take it out certain days, and there's days you can enjoy leaving it at home, which I feel like Deacon and I have fallen where it's like at the end of the day, if me, if you want my opinion right now, and it's never gonna change, if they ban it, cool. If they keep it, cool, I'm gonna keep scoping them. Like it's one way or another, I'm here to catch a fish, and I enjoy being on the water, and that's always gonna be number one priority. So it's like Yeah, it there's it's hard for us, I think, to pick a side because we enjoy using it and also not using it and don't really have the skin in the game. So it's yeah, I don't know. And I I think overall I'm we don't have an agenda either, so that kind of helps too.

SPEAKER_01 56:09

Yeah, that's also helpful. I think I think overall I would be the same same boat. I'd be fine with it, fine without it. I like the option of having it. I think it's a the learning aspect to me, I would really struggle with not having that anymore. Like I think that that is super cool. Um but I understand the concerns with it as well. And so I'm kind of in this like I'm going to in every single body of water that I fish, certainly almost most times of the year, I am always also going to check a bite that has nothing to do with forward-facing sonar, even if it's locked in on my boat at that time. Because I've just seen it be way too much fun and catch big ones without it. So, like, I'm kind of in this, like, even if it's used or not used, I still always like I think it's an advantage to be able to fish without utilizing it and going and shutting it off in your brain and not utilizing it and going fishing because a lot, plenty of fish to be caught without it, I guess is my point. Certainly in places where you and I live.

SPEAKER_02 57:19

Yeah, absolutely. Well, dude, I think it was productive for our first uh Starlink Road Road dogging podcast.

SPEAKER_01 57:29

Dude, I'm telling you, Starlink is, you know, I am I am blown away. This has been I'm I've been through sections where I have driven through many times and absolutely lost coverage, would have lost coverage over and over and over again. So that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

Yeah. Heck yeah. Well, folks, uh be curious to your guys' thoughts on this. I'm sure we're gonna get some different comments on this one. Um, but like when when you go to make a comment, uh if you already commented, I guess it's too late. But uh whether you're commenting on Spotify, on YouTube, I challenge you to take your opinion and then try to put yourself in somebody's shoes that might disagree and why they might disagree. Uh, because I think that just not only goes for fishing, that goes for, like Deacon said, for life right now. A lot of us could benefit from each other thinking about putting ourselves into somebody else's shoes. Uh, because again, there's a lot of selfish people out there. Um, there's times I could be very selfish too, where I try to challenge myself to think of the opposite and what that might impact, things like that. Not saying you have to switch your opinion, but it's good to understand how the opposite of what you think feels and why they feel that way. Uh, or they think that way. But um challenge you to think that before you go and quick comment. Um, but I am genuinely interested in what you guys think of it. We are back with the pods now. We will be consistently having pods going forward, I promise. Um was that was the craziest section of our year that has now passed us. Uh, but uh some cool stuff coming up ahead. We got some guests lined up on some shows and um some cool new announcements coming. Like you've probably already heard. We are working with Hummerbird Minkoda, heard the ad in the middle of this show. Uh, so we bring in some cool stuff that way. It's seemingly funny we talk about technology and we introduce that on this show. But uh we've been long-term friends of the Hummerbird Minkoda brands, which has been had a long legacy of products like Helix and Minkoda in general from a trolling motor standpoint of uh leading the industry and stuff, so it's awesome to have them partnered here on the show. But uh Deke, good luck in your travels. Got some Super 60 events coming up, and uh uh I guess where you're from from that standpoint, fans of the show, where can they keep up with how you do in these super 60 events?

SPEAKER_01 59:53

Yeah, man, follow along uh Instagram, just Adam underscore Geekin, I think. But look up uh look up all the stuff also on the BAM website. And man, I think I don't know if I'm gonna get it in time before this next tournament, but I would like to figure out running the Starlink on the boat to see if I can make that happen in the next two weeks. But I think it would be cool to do a little streaming of uh of the derby days, and certainly gonna have the ability to have more content on the water with that.

unknown 1:00:26

So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

Um anyways, follow along. We got we got a lot to come.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:31

Hell yeah, a lot more to come, and for our lure lab folk, a lot more to come on that here too. We'll be kickstarting that this week as well. So you'll be seeing more content, a lot of content coming uh on that department. But uh folks, appreciate you guys. Uh, if you haven't scooped up some Sears Angler apparel yet, we have all that on our website, Searsangler Network.com. Uh, we know we've had some DMs of people ask if we had hats or t-shirts, things like that. And uh with Father's Day coming up, hopefully you guys are able to get out with some loved ones, whether it's fishing, hiking, whatever, to spending quality time with the family. So it's all all the fathers out there. Happy Father's Day. Uh, hopefully you guys enjoy and uh make the most of it. But uh Deke, appreciate you, dude. And uh folks, we'll see y'all next Monday for a new CRC Western podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:19

See you on the next one.