There’s no doubt the ever-evolving Forward-Facing Sonar technologies are very popular. At CED Marine, we have definitely experienced an increase in sales and inquiries for these products. Two of the most-requested models in this field are Garmin’s Panoptix LiveScope and ActiveTarget from Lowrance, but there are others and all are at different price points.

This technology utilizes scanning Sonar to look ahead of the vessel as it moves through the water, and provide some really impressive and important visual information for navigation as well as for fishing. When used in combination with other transducer signals such as down and side-scan CHIRP, you have a complete picture of what is going on underneath and ahead of your boat.

Deciding on what products are the right fit for you depends on what you need to do with the imaging. For shallow-water fishing, a trolling motor mounted transducer gives a clear and realistic 3D image, but it’s best for short ranges for casting or scouting. By adding an auxiliary display in the bow of the boat, an angler can operate the unit, see the information on the display and cast or scout with ease and confidence.

The technology is developing rapidly, and with advancements in other areas like reduction in transducer noise, gyro stabilization and signal processing, we can hope that scanning sonar will be able to cover longer, deeper areas while delivering the astonishing 3D imaging seen from forward-facing models.

Here at CED Marine we do our very best to help our dealers stay up to date with all marine electronics developments, we invite calls for information and tech advice.