Forward-Facing Sonar AND High-Res Mapping: A Powerful Combination For Tournament Bass Fishing Success

Forward-facing sonar and high-resolution mapping are like peanut butter and jelly — sure, you can enjoy them separately, but why? Each improves the other; the whole inarguably better than the sum of its parts.

Major League Fishing REDCREST 2025 Knockout Round qualifier Jacob Wall uses C-MAP REVEAL charts and Lowrance Active Target forward-facing sonar in tandem to find and catch big bass. | Image by Greg C. Huff

Why Mapping and Sonar Are Better Together for Catching Bass

For Major League Fishing REDCREST 2025 Knockout Round qualifier Jacob Wall, C-MAP REVEAL charts and Lowrance Active Target forward-facing sonar are two great tastes that taste great together.

“Here on Guntersville, we’re looking at 60,000 acres of water – that’s a lot of water to break down with Active Target,” Wall explains, sitting at the console of his boat prior to blasting off on the second day of REDCREST competition. “It starts here on my C-MAP, looking for these nuances, points, humps, saddles, drains out of pockets,” he says, pointing at the brightly shaded map of Lake Guntersville displayed on one of two Lowrance HDS Pro units mounted above his steering wheel. “Those types of things are going to be those starting places that I’m going to look.”

How to Read Shaded Relief Mapping to Maximize Sonar Use

Having and understanding how to read high-resolution bathymetric maps, Wall says, is essential to successfully finding and catching bass with forward-facing sonar, no matter where you’re fishing, in tournament competition and fun-fishing alike.

“It’s really important being able to find and look for those areas, those high-percentage areas to look with your Active Target,” Wall explains. “You think, OK, you’re able to look out in front of the boat with Active Target, but the reality of it is you’re looking at such a small window of water at a time. You’ve got to know where to put down that trolling motor.”

Wall points again to the C-MAP REVEAL chart of Lake Guntersville on his graph, which he studied both before the tournament and throughout the first REDCREST competition day.

“You can see how these humps really pop there,” he says.

Humps are among the key, fish-holding structure glowing in vivid reds, oranges, yellows greens and blues in his map’s Shaded Relief layer, which is one of two features exclusive to C-MAP’s REVEAL line of cards (the other is Satellite Overlay). Each color shade, gradually bleeding into the next, represents a depth change – the warmer the color, the shallower the water; the cooler the color, the deeper. Fish-holding structures, rising from the Guntersville’s lake bed, stand in stark relief, catching the eye.

“You guys can see how good the definition is, and see how awesome these creek channels pop,” Wall says. “All these little points, some stuff that may go kind of hidden when you don’t have that [Shaded Relief]. The shading really allows you to see those definite edges and those changes amongst those deeper-to-shallower areas. Or possibly where … that [channel] swing is up against that shoreline.”

High-resolution mapping “is so important,” Wall reiterates. “That allows me to see where those fish are with my Active Target and then hopefully put together a viable pattern. And when we don’t have Active Target available, I’m able to continue running a potential pattern, because of my map.”

Channel-swing banks are among the key structures Jacob Wall will find on C-MAP charts and then pick apart with Active Target. | Image by Greg C. Huff

Jacob Wall’s Tournament Strategy on Lake Guntersville

In REDCREST and Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour tournaments, anglers can utilize forward-facing sonar in only one of three competition periods per day.

After three days of practice and one day of competition on Guntersville, Wall’s map is littered with waypoints. Many of the icons are situated close to practically identical contour-line representations of structure. From that info, Wall built and expanded on a pattern that helped him advance to the REDCREST Knockout Round, eventually placing 14th. Essential to his pattern-building process – in REDCREST and other tournaments – is the accuracy and high-resolution detail in his C-MAP chart.

“It just allows you to really see those nuances, and gives you just more ideas and more places to pull up to in order to go and catch as many bass as you can,” he says.

Wall’s REDCREST Performance: Stats and Results

In three days of competition on Guntersville, competing against the world’s most-accomplished anglers, Wall caught 38 “scorable” bass, weighing a combined 106 pounds and 15 ounces. In Major League Fishing competition, all bass meeting or exceeding a pre-determined minimum weight or length limit are weighed moments after landing and then immediately returned to the water. REDCREST’s minimum weight was 2 pounds. Wall’s best day on the water was his second, when he caught and weighed 14 scorable bass weighing a combined 40 pounds, 10 ounces. He won $10,000 for his efforts.