Picture this: you’re pushing away from the dock in Flamingo, before heading into the vast backcountry of Everglades National Park. Around every corner, you have the potential to find something epic, like a laid-up tarpon resting on a mud flat. The beauty of fishing these wild places lies in the sense of adventure and the unknown. You never know what will be around the next corner unless you take the time to explore and find out for yourself. Unfortunately, much of that is changing with the advent of new fishing electronics, particularly forward facing sonar (FFS).
What is Forward Facing Sonar?
Forward facing sonar is an advanced fish-finding technology system that works by emitting sonar waves in a forward-facing direction. Unlike traditional sonar systems, FFS reads these waves in real time, displaying live fish movement and structure on a screen mounted on the boat. Essentially, it’s underwater X-ray vision that allows you to see structure or fish, regardless of water clarity. This technique originated in tournament bass angling, but has recently gained traction as a tool for saltwater anglers.
FFS Critics
The first version of FFS launched in 2015, with Garmin’s Panoptix system. Since then, technology has advanced rapidly, with the latest iterations displaying imagery so detailed that you can distinguish among different fish species and even track your lure relative to fish. As this technology progressed, so did bass anglers’ reliance on it in the tournament scene. So much so that many of the major bass tournament series outright banned FFS technology or severely limited it. The biggest proponents of the ban argue that the technology is too effective, giving anglers an unfair advantage.
Issues with FFS in Everglades National Park
As FFS technology grows in popularity and availability, some anglers have begun using it in Everglades National Park. For anyone who’s fished the park, it can be easy to understand why. The large open bays and tannic waters can make it hard to locate fish. However, if you look at the bigger picture and the park’s importance to migratory species like tarpon, this reasoning becomes nearsighted, favoring immediate success on the water over the greater health and longevity of the fishery.
The Glades is unique in that it holds tarpon of varying sizes year-round. At certain times of the year, large migratory fish move in, feeding and resting before their annual migrations. During others, resident fish lie hidden in the endless creeks and bays of the Park. Even for the Everglades’ best guides—those that spend countless days a year on the water—many of these fish go completely unnoticed. The lack of fishing pressure is what makes the fishing in the park so good. Tarpon have an opportunity to rest and avoid angler interactions. However, this is not the case with FFS. If there’s a tarpon in front of the transducer’s beam, any angler can find these resting fish.
Bonefish & Tarpon Trust (BTT), in a recent statement on the use of FFS in Everglades National Park, wrote, “Additionally, forward-facing sonar has the potential to eliminate natural refuges that have historically limited fishing pressure. Tarpon holding deep or remaining inactive—behaviors that previously reduced their exposure to anglers—can now be detected and targeted. This is a fundamental shift in the balance between fish behavior and angling pressure, comparable to now prohibited practices in Boca Grande, Florida, that targeted non-feeding tarpon with jigs used for snagging.” Without rest areas, the use of FFS in the park could have detrimental impacts on tarpon. These fish no longer have places to hide and may avoid historic resting areas altogether.
Another key concern that BTT addresses in its statement is the likelihood of increased shark predation. Sharks are known to follow large congregations of tarpon both before and during spawning. While the sharks aren’t going anywhere, the use of FFS may make predation a bigger issue. When a tarpon is hooked and fought to exhaustion, it becomes an easy target for sharks. The effectiveness of FFS naturally leads to more fish being hooked, which in turn leads to more fish being eaten by sharks.
What Can Anglers Do?
While the use of forward facing sonar in Everglades National Park is concerning, the good news is that the solution to this issue, as with countless others before, lies within the fishing community. Our community of like-minded anglers has banded together time and time again when conservation issues that could affect the health of our fisheries arise. The issue of FFS in an ecological sanctuary like the Everglades is no different. For those wanting to take action, you can sign this petition started by Captain Quinton Destout to outlaw FFS in Everglades National Park.
Last Updated on July 2, 2026 by Max Inchausti
A slight correction: All sonar reads in real time.
The difference between FFs and regular sonar, down imaging, side imaging, or 360 sonar is where it reads from on the boat.
Another misconception about FFS – or any sonar – is that it can see through structure and cover. It can’t. It’s just like our vision, if something is hidden, it can’t be seen – so, no, it’s not “X-ray vision.” Water clarity considerably impacts how well it works as well…just like fog or smoke impacts vision.
All of that said, I do believe that using FFS can be harmful to fisheries, and particularly to larger fish species like tarpon because anglers who previously missed fish can spot them on FFS, and camp out on them fishing until they annoy a fish they never would have seen into striking. We have the same issue up in the north with muskies and pike.
I don’t – and won’t – use FFS on my boats. It would take the fun out of fishing, and looks like an incredibly dull way to spend a day, hunched over a screen – there’s no fish I need to catch that much.
…but getting the details right, and being accurate when describing the technology matters a lot in these discussions. Getting it wrong opens the door to easy criticism of the rest of the arguments for not using the tech, or in this case, banning it’s use in some areas, or for some kinds of fishing.